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THE VENERABLE BEDE

STUDIES IN CHURCH HISTORY

THE

VENERABLE BEDE

HIS LIFE AND WRITINGS

BY THE

RT. REV. G. F. BROWNE, D.D.

FORMERLY BISHOP OF STEPNEY AND OF BRISTOL
VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES

ILLUSTRATED

LONDON :

SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING
CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE

NEW YORK : THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1919

PREFACE

THIS book in its original form was an Essay for the
degree of Bachelor in Divinity in the University of
Cambridge. It was published in 1879 by the Society
for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge, in then-
series of "The Fathers for English Readers." It has
had a steady sale and has been reprinted from time
to time. Its main purpose was to deal with the per
sonal and historical parts of Bede's writings.

My five years' tenure of the Professorship of Art and
Archaeology in the University of Cambridge, 1888-92,
resulted from and led to continuous study of the
treasures that still remain to us in various parts of
these islands from the early ages of Christianity.
Several of the books on the History of our Church
which I have written since this Essay was published
have dealt with some of these treasures and have con
tained illustrations of them. The two delightful
volumes of Bede's Histories with which the Reverend
Charles Plummer of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, has
enlarged and enriched our knowledge of Bede and his
times appeared in 1896. When a fresh reprint of my
Essay was called for in 1918, the stereotype plates had
been melted down at the instance of the Government.
It seemed right to recast and greatly enlarge the book,
including in its survey the other parts of Bede's
voluminous writings, and giving illustrations of some
of the interesting objects described in the text. I
have not observed strict uniformity or scientific
accuracy in the spelling of Anglo-Saxon names.

G. F. BROWNE.

2 CAMPDEN HOUSE ROAD,
KENSINGTON, W. 8.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
THE PERSONAL HISTORY OP BEDE

PAGE

Aldhelm, Bede, Alcuin — Bede's boyhood — Benedict Biscop —
Bede's Ordination — John of Beverley — A monk's and a
priest's life — Date of Bede's death — The death scene —
Bede's summary of his life — His list of his writings — The
epithet "Venerable" ...... . i

CHAPTER II
THE CONVERSION OF NORTHUMBRIA

The seven kingdoms — Descent of the kings — Deira and Ber-
nicia — The slave youths in Rome — Pope G^egory,'a arrange
ments for .the conversion of England — Edwin of Deira —
"""Importance of York — A. Kentish princess — Letters from
Pope Boniface — Paulinus — The Northumbrian House of
Lords — Coin the archpriest — The British kings Cadfan and
Cadwalla — Defeat and death of Edwin — Apostasy —
Churches built by Paulinus — The West Riding — James the
deacon — Love of music . . . . . . . 23

CHAPTER III
THE RESTORATION OF CHRISTIANITY IN NORTHUMBRIA

Oswald and his brothers — Vision of Columba — Origins of our
Coronation Service — lona and Aidan — Union of Deira
and Bernicia — Oswald's death — Oswin in Deira — Aidan's
death .......... 49

x The Venerable Bede

CHAPTER IV

CHRISTIANITY IN NORTHUMBRIA TO THE TIME OF BEDE

PAGE

King Oswy — Christianity in Mercia — Penda slain — Date of the
Easter Feast — The Conference of Whitby — Wilfrith —
Golman — Migration to Ireland — Alchfrith — His memorial
cross at Bewcastle — Runic inscriptions . . . .62

CHAPTER V
THE BRITISH CHRISTIANS

First introduction of Christianity into Britain— Tertullian's
evidence — Council of Aries — Orthodoxy of the Britons —
Departure of the Romans — The Britons and Augustine —
Picts and Scots — Flight of Roman bishops — The Welsh
Church — Summary of conversion of the several kingdoms . 81

CHAPTER VI
BEDE'S WRITINGS. THE ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

Bede's Preface — His view of the advantage of history — King
Alfred's opinion — King Ceolwulf — " Volume," " book,"
"codex" — Sources of the History — Orosius — Range of the
History — The Romans — The walls in Britain from sea to
sea — The Picts and Scots — The Jutes, Saxons, and Angles —
Hengist and Horsa — The Cat Stane — The explanation of
the Walls — Pelagianism — Gildas — Bede's care for accuracy
— The British Isles in Bede's time — Five languages in the
Isles — The Scots from Ireland — The first arrival of the
Picts of Caledonia ....... 96

CHAPTER VII
THE LIVES OF THE ABBATS

Contents xi

PAGE

Alchfrith again— Pictures of Saints— The Vision of Dry-
thelm — The Revelation of St. Peter — Foundation of Jarrow
— Dedication stone — Privileges from the Pope — Pictures
at Jarrow — Death scene of Biscop — Bede's age at that
time — Abbat Easterwine — Abbat Ceolfrith — The Codex
Amiatinus — Alcuin's recollections of Wearmouth — A
pretty saying of Bede . . . . . • .112

CHAPTER VIII
THE LIFE OF ST. CUTHBERT

Stories of miracle — Many of these stories not miraculous —
Melrose and Boisil — Alchfrith and Ripon — Prior of Melrose —
Abbat of Lindisfarne — His rule there — Retirement to a
small island — Bishop of Lindisfarne — At Carlisle — His
death and burial— Relics of St. Cuthbert— Coffin— Pec
toral Cross — Portable altar — Robes — Charlemagne's robes 137

CHAPTER IX
CAEDMON AND WILFRITH

Caedmon — His early life — Inspiration — Sacred poems —
Death scene — His Memorial Cross at Whitby — The Ruth-
well Cross — The Dream of the Holy Rood — The Quinisext
Council — Oswald's wooden cross — Bede's Memorial Cross
at Rooker Point — Wilfrith's expulsions and restorations —
Bede's silence 171

CHAPTER X
THE EPISTLE TO ECGBERT

The Epistle to Ecgbert — Ecgbert's Pontifical — His royal des
cent — Master of School of York — Alcuin a pupil — Alcuin's
praise of him — Bede's advice — More bishoprics — York a
Metropolitan see — The Pallium — Cruel treatment of Leo III
— Paulinus not a metropolitan archbishop — Irregular con
secration of Archbishop Honorius of Canterbury — Careful
ness in conversation — The Pastoral Care of Gregory I — The
Lord's Prayer and the Creed in the vulgar tongue — Sub
division of the diocese of York — Number of Bishops'

xii The Venerable Bede

PAGE

Too many monasteries — Monastic endowments for bishop
rics — Resident priests in country places — Great abuses of
false monasteries — Evil lives 185

CHAPTER XI
POETIC WRITINGS

List of Bede's poems — The Controversy on the Cuckoo — Al-
cuin's poem on the Cuckoo — Alcuin's Cuckoo a real person
— Bede's poem on the Apostles Peter and Paul — Aldhelm's
verses on St. Peter and St. Paul — Bede's esteem for Aldhelm
— Masses for the Day of St. Peter and St. Paul — Visits ad
limina Apostolorum — Enigmas of Aldhelm and Alcuin —
Alcuin's comb — Bede's view of the importance of the
Psalms — His Psalter now at Cologne — His Song of
Degrees — Alcuin's prominent use of the Psalms due to
Bede 196

CHAPTER XII
THE SCIENTIFIC WORKS OF BEDE

On the reckoning of Times — Interest of the subject — Indica
tion of numbers with the fingers — Anno Domini — Dionysius
— Telligraffs — On the Nature of Things — Bede's indebted
ness to Isidore — Bede and Isidore in Paradise — Isidore's
indebtedness to others — Why the sea is salt — On the rain
bow — On Mount JEtna — Agostoli — Have stars a soul ? —
On thunder and thunderings . . . . . 217

CHAPTER XIII
THE COMMENTARIES AND HOMILIES OF BEDE

His method as a preacher — His method as a commentator —
An example from Acts ii. — The Song of Solomon — Am
biguities of the Latin language — Bede's dedications of
his commentaries — Bishop Acca — Celibacy — Answers to
Nothelm — The wood- worm — The lion in the pit — The
Virgin Mary — The Two Sacraments — ^Elfric's homily —
Bede outside his monastery — Anointing with oil — Confes
sion — Purgatory — The vision of Drythelm — Figurative
interpretations — Bede sung as a heretic — The parable of
the Good Samaritan ....... 231

Contents xiii

CHAPTER XIV
A SERMON BY BEDE

PACK

Collections of Homilies — Two books of Bede's Homilies —
Manuscript evidence — The Text — " Whom do men say
that I, the Son of Man, am ? " . . . . . 255

CHAPTER XV

FURTHER MIRACLES

The power of faith — Miracles wrought on Bede and by his
relics — General belief — Further miracles by Cuthbert —
Preservation of his body — His coffin — Its ornamentation —
Later miracles — Bishop John of Hexham — General conclu
sion on miracles ........ 267

CHAPTER XVI
THE STATE OF MORALS IN BEDE'S TIME

Ecclesiastics — Monasteries — Lay people — Nuns — Kings —

Remains of Paganism . . . . . . .278

CHAPTER XVII
STUDY AND MISSIONS

Enthusiasm for study — Education — The School of York — Its
masters — Alcuin — Missions, Irish influence — Egbert —
Willibrord — Boniface — Englishmen's influence on the
rulers of the Franks from Pepin to Charlemagne . . 294

CHAPTER XVIII
ANGLO-SAXON ART

Art work in gems and precious metals — Silks — Pictures —
Geography — Sculptured stones — Classes of objects —
Churchyards — Classes of surface ornamentation — The
human figure — The tree of life — The interlacements —
Dragonesque interlacements — Irish examples — Caledonian
Picts — The Lindisfarne Gospels — Comparison with the
Book of Kells 304

ILLUSTRATIONS

AT THE END OF THE VOLUME

1. THE ToMBStONE OF KING CADVAN

2. THE CROSS OF THE HOLY JAMES

3. THE DISMEMBERMENT OF OSWALD

4. THE EFFIGY OF KING ALCHFRITH

5. THE KIRKDALE SUNDIAL

6. THE DEDICATION STONE OF THE CHURCH OF JARROW

7. ST. CUTHBERT'S PECTORAL CROSS

8. ST. CUTHBERT'S PORTABLE ALTAR

g, 10. STOLE FOUND ON ST. CUTHBERT'S BODY

ii, 12. SILK ROBES PREPARED FOR HIS TRANSLATION

13. CHARLEMAGNE'S ELEPHANT ROBE

14. ELEPHANT ROBE OF EIGHTH CENTURY

15. THE RUTH WELL RUNES

1 6. THE CROSS CALLED ETHELWOLD'S
THE BEWCASTLE VINE SCROLL

17. PANELS FROM CROSSES AT KELLS

1 8. THE BEWCASTLE CROSS

19, 20. ILLUMINATIONS OF THE LINDISFARNE GOSPELS

GENEALOGICAL TABLES

PAGES

TABLES OF THE KINGS OF DEIRA, BERNICIA, AND MERCIA . 47, 48

THE VENERABLE BEDE

CHAPTER I

THE PERSONAL HISTORY OF BEDE

Aldhelm, Bede, Alcuin — Bede's boyhood — Benedict Biscop— Bede's
Ordination — John of Beverley — A monk's and a priest's life —
Date of Bede's death — The death scene— Bede's summary of his
life — His list of his writings — The epithet "Venerable."

THE early years of the Church in England produced
three great scholars, one after the other, Aldhelm,
Bede, Alcuin. The first was born in or about 635, the
last died in 804. Bede was born about forty years
after Aldhelm, and was a man of thirty-six when
Aldhelm died. Alcuin was born in the year in which
Bede died. Thus the series of great men may be
literally described as continuous.

While the influence of their writings reached far
beyond their own land, the areas of their personal
influence differed very widely. Aldhelm was of the
royal race of the West Saxons, his birth nearly coin
ciding with the baptism of the first Christian king of
the West Saxons, Cynegils. He was Abbat of the
important monastery of Malmesbury, and on the
division of the bishopric of the West Saxons he became
bishop of the western part, which he covered with

2 The Venerable Bede

active work. He^diecL atjthe_age_of^ seventy^fom1,
.leaving a widespread personal mark. Bede was a
choir-boy in a newly founded monastery, was ordained
deacon and priest there, lived, wrote, and died there.
In the immediate vicinity of his monastery he was
seen and known and, received with much kindness.
Of visits to a distance requiring absence from his cell
at night we only know of two, on one of which occasions
his personal influence had a large effect. Alcuin also
was an inmate of a monastic school almost from
infancy. He became Master of the School of York
in succession to two archbishops of royal race, and
passed thence into the service and friendship of
Charlemagne, in which position his personal influence
and the influence of his letters may fairly be said to
have covered the whole of Europe. • He was ordained
deacon early, and never proceeded to the priesthood.

Aldhelm's early training was given at Malmesbury
by an Irish monk, a fugitive from his native land. In
his days, English students had to go over to Ireland to
find learned teachers, and against the need for this
Aldhelm protested vigorously. His more advanced
training came from Abbat Hadrian and Archbishop
Theodore. Thus he had Celtic, Latin, and Greek
elements in his building up in scholarship. Lanfranc
canonised him. Bede was trained by the much-travelled
Benedict Biscop in all that appertained to the monastic
and the priestly life, and he had access to a well-stored
library of manuscripts from Italy and Gaul. Alcuin
was trained by his royal master, Archbishop Ecgbert
of York, and later by Ecgbert 's cousin and successor
Albert. These men gathered together a vast library
of ecclesiastical and secular works, probably as great
a library as then existed in the West, and this library

The Personal History of Bede 3

Albert bequeathed to Alcuin, who succeeded him in
the mastership of the School of York. Of Ecgbert
his first teacher, William of Malmesbury, who wrote
a generation after the Norman Conquest, declares
that he was an armoury of all the liberal arts, and
founded the most noble Library of York. It is need
less to say that William fully recognises the unique
importance of these three great Englishmen, Aldhelm,
Bede, Alcuin.

Of this unique serie* of English scholars and church
men, we are now concerned with the middle term,
the Venerable Bede. But we shall bear in mind the
fact that he is a middle term, and when occasion
serves we shall bring in illustrative matter from him
who went before and from him who came after.

The Venerable Bede is one of the most striking figures
in the history of the English Church. A voluminous
and learned Christian writer on many subjects, theo
logical, historical, grammatical, and physical, he sprang
from an immediate ancestry of unlettered pagans.
The first preacher of Christianity who visited his fathers
arrived in the country only fifty years before Bede's
birth. Forty years before his birth, the kings of the
land were heathens ; one, indeed, was worse than a
heathen, for he had been called a Christian and had
abjured the faith of Christ. The progress made in those
forty years was marvellous. We find kings and peo'ple
vying with one another in paying honour to Christian
bishops and priests ; churches rising in one town and
village after another ; large grants of land — grants too
profuse, Bede says — for the foundation of monasteries.
At the time when Bede was born, we find a North
umbrian noble building the monastery which after
wards received him, employing workmen and manu-

4 The Venerable Bede

facturers of glass from Italy, where he studied all the
details of the monastic life, in order that his church
and all his arrangements might be worthy of his holy
purpose. Here, in a monastery built by one who
must have passed his boyhood while the land was
still pagan, Bede lived and wrote and died but one
generation later. In these present times of active
missionary enterprise it is difficult to imagine any
thing more encouraging, and more full of hopeful
prophecy, than the final conversion of Northumbria,
with its speedy outcome in the person of the Venerable
Bede.

The life of Bede was the quiet uneventful life of a
monastic student in time of peace. Very little infor
mation has been put on record respecting him, pro
bably because there was little to record. The main
outlines of his life are all that we know. There is a
singular absence of personal allusion in his writings,
even where some reference to himself or to his sur
roundings would have been natural. Thus, to take an
instance, in his sermon on the dedication day of the
church at Jarrow he makes not the slightest reference
to any detail of the building itself. He gives an
account of the founder, describes minutely the Temple
of Solomon, entering into much curious explanation
of the symbolism intended by its dimensions and
arrangement, and then raises his hearers at once to
the Temple not made with hands.

The Venerable Bede was born in the year of our
Lord 673, or possibly a year earlier. The actual place
of his birth cannot be determined. He tells us that
it was somewhere in the territory assigned about the
time of his birth to Benedict Biscop, who founded
there the twin monasteries of Wearmouth and Jarrow.

The Personal History of Bede 5

The former of these, the monastery of St. Peter, on
the north bank of the river Wear, was built in the
year 674, and here Bede was placed at the age of
seven years under the charge of the founder, who
ruled the monastery as its abbat. Boys in Saxon
monasteries did not fare badly. We have a colloquy
in which a boy is made to describe his daily food in
his monastery. He had worts (i.e. kitchen herbs), fish,
cheese, butter, beans, and flesh meats. He drank ale
when he could get it, and water when he could not :
wine was too dear.

The sister monastery of St. Paul, at Jarrow, on the
south bank of the Tyne, was built by Benedict in the
year 682, and Bede was transferred to that establish
ment under Ceolfrid, its first abbat. Here he re
mained for the rest of his life, occupying himself in
the practical work of the monks, in the priestly office,
and in incessant study, literary work, and teaching.

There is a charming account, in the anonymous
History of the Abbat s of Jarrow which Dr. Giles gives
in his fifth volume, of the love of the Psalms and of
chanting in which Bede was brought up. He is not
mentioned by name, but it is beyond doubt that he is
the unus puerulus, the one little boy, of the story. We
cannot do better than borrow Dr. Plummer's sympa
thetic rendering of the passage. It was the time of a
terrible plague.

" In the monastery over which Ceolfrid presided,
all who could read or preach or recite the antiphons
and responses were swept away, except the abbot
himself and one little lad nourished and taught by
him, who is now a priest of the same monastery, and
both by word of mouth and by writing commends to
all who wish to know them the abbot's worthy deeds.

6 The Venerable Bede

And the abbot, sad at heart because of this visitation,
ordained that, contrary to their former rite, they
should, except at vespers and matins, recite their
psalms without antiphons. And when this had been
done with many tears and lamentations on his part
for the space of a week, he could not bear it any longer,
but deemed that the psalms, with their antiphons,
should be restored according to the order of the
regular course ; and all assisting, by means of him
self and the aforesaid boy he carried out with no little
labour that which he had decreed, until he could either
himself train or procure from elsewhere men able to
take part in the divine service."

In a striking sermon on the text, " Every one that
hath forsaken houses, &c.," preached on the anni
versary of Benedict Biscop's death, a sort of Com
memoration Sermon, Bede gives a summary of this
good man's useful life. A noble by birth, he gave up
his place and prospects in the king's household, and
went to Rome. There he studied monastic institu
tions, and was tonsured, and there he determined to
spend the rest of his life. Pope Vitalian, however,
sent him to England again with Theodore, the great
Archbishop of Canterbury whom England owed to the
discrimination of that pontiff. King Ecgfrid gave him
sites for two monasteries, not taking them — as Bede
significantly remarks— from some one else, but giving
from his own property. Here Benedict built, as has
been said, Monk Wearmouth and Jarrow, the latter
about five miles from Wearmouth ; and over these twin
establishments he ruled for many years.

Benedict frequently visited the Continent. He
never came back empty, — unlike many of those who
have made a continental tour, as Bede remarks.

The Personal History of Bede 7

He brought over with him at various times all sorts
of treasures for his monasteries. Now a supply of
holy books, now the relics of martyrs ; now architects
for building his church, now glass-makers for filling
and beautifying its windows ; now masters in the art
of chanting, keeping them with him a whole year ;
now a letter of privileges from the Pope, declaring
the monasteries free from visitation. Pictures, too, he
brought, representing scenes from Scripture ; intend
ing these not only for ornaments in the church, but
also as a means of instruction for those who were not
able to read. Indeed, he stored his monasteries so
abundantly with things necessary for learning, that the
inmates had at hand all the information and assistance
they required in the courses of study open to them.

It was necessary to say so much as this of Benedict
here, in order to show Bede's surroundings and oppor
tunities. We shall see more of him later on.

How extensive those studies were may be to some
extent gathered from a list of the books and treatises
which Bede himself wrote. The list1 is appended by
Bede to the Fifth Book of his Ecclesiastical History,
and is prefaced by an autobiographical account of the
writer, containing, unfortunately, only eighteen or
twenty lines. It is concluded by a short sentence of
prayerful hope that the Lord Jesus, who had graciously
allowed him to partake of the words of wisdom and
knowledge, would some time or other take him to the
fountain of all knowledge, where he might always
appear before His face.

At the age of nineteen, six years before the then
canonical age, Bede was ordained Deacon. At the
age of thirty he was ordained Priest. At the age of

1 See pages 16-18.

8 The Venerable Bede

fifty-nine he completed his greatest work, the Ecclesi
astical History of the English Race. Four years later
he died. In a few brief words he gives a summary
account of his life and labours. " I spent all my
years in that monastery, ever intent upon the study
of the Scriptures. In the intervals between the duties
enjoined by the disciplinary rule and the daily care
of chanting in the church, I took sweet pleasure in
always learning, teaching, or writing." The Bishop
who ordained him was John, Bishop of Hexham, who
had been educated under Hilda at Whitby. This John
is better known as John of Beverley, a pupil of the
learned and wise Archbishop Theodore, and it may
well be that Bede owed to him much of his learning,
especially in the Greek tongue. For Theodore, who
was a native of Tarsus in Cilicia, had introduced the
knowledge of Greek into England, and fostered ^it so
carefully that in Bede's time there were many who
spoke Greek with as much ease as English. The art
of chanting Bede learned from a famous adept, John,
the Archchanter of St. Peter's at Rome, whom Pope
Agatho lent for a year to Benedict Biscop. We are
told that multitudes of people from the country round
came to Wearmouth to hear John sing.

It is said that Bede declined the office of abbat,
not wishing to deprive himself of leisure for study.
A glance at the business and necessary occupations
of the inmates of a monastery, as gathered from
Bede's writings, will show that even without the
onerous duties of the abbat, external and domestic,
the ordinary priest-monk could not have had very much
leisure. The brothers occupied themselves in thresh
ing and winnowing their corn ; in giving milk to the
lambs and calves ; in baking, gardening, cooking, and

The Personal History of Bede 9

other parts of the less menial work of a large establish
ment. A considerable part of the day was spent in
the observances enjoined by the Rule under which
the regular monks lived. The priestly office gave
continual work. "The mass-priest must have his
missal, his singing-book, his reading-book, his psalter,
his manual, his penitential, his numeral. He must
have his officiating garments, and must sing from
sunrise, with the nine intervals and the nine readings."
So said an Anglo-Saxon law in later times, and to
this considerable amount of work no doubt Bede
refers when he speaks of his daily care of chanting
in the church. Add to this the preparation and
delivery of frequent sermons. When all these duties
had been scrupulously performed, then, and only
then, had Bede leisure for his reading and teaching,
and for the voluminous works which proceeded from
his pen. Even in these present times, with all their
facilities for literary labour, few lives of fifty-nine
years can render so good an account of themselves.

We may reject as undoubtedly erroneous the state
ment that Bede visited Rome. Some of the monks
from Jarrow visited Rome in 701, a year before Bede
was priested. It is probable that Pope Sergius may
have invited Bede to visit Rome. Some one in the
later ages invented the story that he was a Professor
in the University of Cambridge, one of the least im
probable parts of the story being that the date assigned
to his Professorship makes him nine years old at the
time. His house was shown between St. John's College
and the Round Church (Fuller) ! There is no trust
worthy record of any prolonged absence from his
monastery. In a letter to a fellow priest on the subject
of the vernal equinox, he alludes to a charming visit

io The Venerable Bede

he had paid to his correspondent. In the same inci
dental way we learn that he had stayed with Ecgbert,
at that time Bishop of York. And in a sermon to which
reference has already been made, he reminds his
monastic audience of the experience they all had on
their occasional visits to the world outside, how every
one welcomed them and was eager to house and feed
them. We know also that he visited Lindisfarne, to
read to the monks his history of the lives of the holy
abbats of that monastery. He was afterwards enrolled
in their Book of Life.

If we have little or no detailed information as to
the facts of Bede's life, we have at least a full account
of his death, written by an eye-witness, Cuthbert, to
his friend Cuthwine. And the account is so touchingly
written, it shows us so kind a master, so loving a friend,
so true a Christian, that we may well wish we had some
account of his life from the same hand. We learn from
this letter that Bede died on Wednesday, the eve of
Ascension Day, and he died rather late in the evening,
for we have the account of a good deal which happened
after three o'clock on Wednesday afternoon. Ascension
Day was held to commence at vespers on the preceding
day, and thus Bede lived till Ascension Day, Holy
Thursday, according to the Church's reckoning, and
yet he died on Wednesday according to civil reckoning.
The writer of the touching account of Bede's death
says clearly and formally that Bede lived " up to the
day of the Lord's Ascension, that is, the seventh of the
calends of June." The seventh of the calends of June
is May 26, and thus Ascension Day was May 26. This
was the case in 735 A.D., so that the year 735 fulfils the
necessary conditions. If the meaning could be taken
to be that the date given is the date of the Wednesday

The Personal History of Bede n

before Ascension Day, the day on which he was taken
ill, Ascension Day would be May 27, and that gives
751 as the year of death, which is much too late. It is,
however, very difficult to get this meaning from the
words.

A different indication of date is given by a manu
script at St. Gall which contains the letter from
Cuthbert. It is probably of the eighth century, by far
the earliest copy of the letter we possess. It is also
the only copy that gives this other date, the " seventh
of the Ides of May " instead of the " seventh of the
kalends of June," May 9 instead of May 26. Ascension
Day did not fall on May 9 in any year between 720
and 799. But in 742 May 9 was the Wednesday before
Ascension Day, and it has been argued that Cuthbert
was giving the date of the Wednesday, not of the
Thursday. This is a forced explanation, as has been
pointed out above, and to put the date so late as 742
contradicts the definite statement of the Continuator
of the Ecclesiastical History, that Bede died in 735.
We know from Bede's letter to Ecgbert, of which we
shall see much later on, that in that year Bede was too
ill to pay a promised visit to him, and it was probably
this illness that carried him off. Further, he closes his
own list of his works with his fifty-ninth year, and 742
would leave ten years without any recorded work
of his.

It is a curious and interesting coincidence that a
like difficulty of precise date occurs in the statement
of the final seizure of another of our three greatest
men, Alcuin. Indeed it is almost more than curious,
for in each case not only Ascension Day but also the
seventh of the Ides of May plays an important part.
On the night of the Ascension (node Ascensionis

12 The Venerable Bede

Domini) he fell fainting on his bed ; on the day of
Pentecost he died. The Annals of Pettau, a monastery
near Salzburg, where we may feel sure that Alcuin's
greatest friend Arno, Archbishop of Salzburg, had all
the facts of Alcuin's last days carefully recorded, tell
us that in 804 Alcuin was struck down on the fifth
day of the week, the eighth of the Ides of May. But
in that year, 804, Ascension Day fell on May 9, so
that Holy Thursday must have been the seventh of
the Ides of May, the day which the St. Gall manuscript
gives as the death day of Bede.

We can now proceed with a summary of Cuthbert's
delightful letter.

From the very slight medical details which are given,
we gather that his death was due to his sedentary
occupations, and to the stooping attitude so constantly
maintained by one who wrote many books in those
days of slow writing. About a fortnight before Easter
in the year in which he died, he was greatly troubled
with shortness of breath, but mercifully without much
pain. He lingered on for some weeks. Throughout the
whole of this time, he gave thanks to God every hour,
day and night, cheerful and always rejoicing. He daily
read lessons to his disciples, and whatever remained of
the day he spent in singing psalms. If a short sleep
interrupted these exercises, he no sooner awoke than he
gave thanks to God with uplifted hands. " I declare
with truth," the faithful Cuthbert exclaims, " I have
never seen with my eyes, nor heard with my ears, any
one so lovingly earnest in giving thanks to the living
God."

He chose a remarkable sentence to chant — remark
able for one whose whole bearing was that of confident
hope — " It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of

The Personal History of Bede 13

the living God." But it was rather for his pupils'
sake that he chose it, for, using it as a text, he urged
them to think of their last hour. He also sang some
English verses on the same subject, in the North
umbrian dialect, of which the following represents the
sense and metre : —

As to the journey
Each must take,
No one is prudent
More than he should be
In considering

Ere he goes hence
What to his spirit,
Of good or of evil,
After the death-day
Doomed may be."

On one occasion he sang the antiphon, " O King
of Glory, Lord of all Power, who didst on this day
ascend in triumph above all the Heavens, leave us
not desolate, but send to us the promise of the
Father, the Spirit of Truth ; Alleluia." At the
words, " Leave us not desolate," he burst into tears,
and wept for a long time. Then his pupils and he
read together. " By turns we read," Cuthbert tells,
" and by turns we wept ; nay, we wept always while
we read. In such joy we passed the days of Lent."
He often repeated the words, " God scourgeth every
son whom He receiveth." Besides the lessons to his
pupils, and the singing of psalms, he translated into
English, during these weeks of prostration, the Gospel
of St. John as far as chapter vi. 9, and also some
extracts from Bishop Isidore.

On the Tuesday before Ascension Day he was
decidedly worse : a swelling appeared in his feet.
Nevertheless he continued to dictate cheerfully, beg
ging his scribe to write quickly, for he did not know
how long he might last, or when it might please his
Maker to take him. That night he lay awake, giving

14 The Venerable Bede

thanks alway. The next morning he urged the
brethren to finish writing what they had begun, and
when that was done, at nine o'clock, they walked in
procession with the relics of the Saints — the origin
of our " perambulation day " — according to the
custom of the time. One stayed with him while the
others were thus engaged, and after a time reminded
him that there was still a chapter to finish, — would it
weary him to be consulted about it ? " Get out your
pen and ink," was Bede's reply, " and write fast, it is
no trouble to me/' So time went on till three in
the afternoon. Then the gentle spirit bethought him
that he had some things he would like to give to his
friends before he died. He bade Cuthbert run quickly
and fetch his fellow-priests, that he might distribute
the little gifts with which God had endowed him.
What a simple picture of the riches of a faithful monk
the list presents ! "I have in my chest pepper, nap
kins, and incense." No gold and silver had he to
give, he told them, but with all love and joy he gave
them what God had given him. Then he told them
that they would see his face no more, and begged
them to say masses and prayers for him. They wept ;
but he turned their weeping into joy by telling them
it was time he returned to Him who made him. He
had lived long ; the time of his departure was at hand ;
he had a desire to depart and to be with Christ.

Then came the final scene. In the evening his
boy-scribe said to him, " One sentence, dear master,
is left unfinished." He bade him write quickly. Soon
the boy announced that it was finished. "True,"
the dying man said, " it is finished. Take mine head
between thy hands and raise me. Full fain would I
sit with my face to my holy oratory, where I was ever

The Personal History of Bede 15

wont to pray, that sitting so I may call on my Father."
And so he sat on the floor of his cell, and chanted
" Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the
Holy Ghost." And as he breathed the words "the
Holy Ghost " he died.

In his fifty-ninth year, A.D. 731, Bede made a com
plete list of his writings, as though he felt that his work
was done. With trifling exceptions, they are all in
existence still. Curiously enough one of the most
important of his writings, the Letter to Bishop
Ecgbert, was written three years after the list was
compiled, in the last year of his life.

His preface to the list of writings gives a simple
summary of his quiet, studious, and prayerful life.
He gives the preface and the list as an appendix to the
Ecclesiastical History, but for our purpose it is better
to place it here.

" Thus much," he says, " of the Church History of
Britain,1 and especially the English race, so far as I
could gather from ancient writings, or tradition, or of
my own knowledge, I, Bede, a servant of Christ and
a priest of the monastery of the blessed Apostles Peter
and Paul at Wearmouth and Jarrow, have, with the
help of the Lord, set down.

" Born in the territory of the same monastery, I
was given at the age of seven to be brought up by the
most reverend Abbat Benedict, and afterwards by
Ceolfrid. Spending all the rest of my life in the
monastery, I gave all my care to meditation on the
Scriptures, and in the intervals of the regular dis
cipline and the daily care of chanting in church, I
found it sweet to be always learning, or teaching, or

1 Bede uses the plural, Britanniarum, possibly as meaning the
British Isles.

16 The Venerable Bede

writing. In the nineteenth year of my life I received
deacon's orders, and in my thirtieth year priest's
orders, in each case by the ministry of the most
reverend bishop John, at the request of Abbat Ceolfrid.
From the time of my priesthood down to my fifty-
ninth year, I have written the following works on Holy
Scripture and from the works of the Venerable Fathers
with interpretations of their meaning : —

Genesis to the birth of Isaac and the rejection of
Ishmael, four books.

On the Tabernacle and its Vessels, and on the
Priests' Vestments, three books.

On the first part of Samuel,1 that is, to the death of
Saul, three books.

On the building of the Temple, an allegorical expo
sition, two books.

On the book of Kings, a book of thirty questions.

On the Proverbs of Solomon, three books.

On the Song of Solomon, seven books.

Excerpts from St. Jerome, on Isaiah, Daniel, part of
Jeremiah, and the Twelve Prophets.

On Ezra and Nehemiah, three books.

On the Song of Habakkuk, one book.

1 This description is in accordance with the arrangement of the
Hebrew text ; the Septuagint and the Vulgate call the books of
Samuel the First and Second Books of Kings. A little lower down
in the list of Bede's works, we find mention of thirty questions on
the Book of Kings ; here the four books of Samuel and Kings are
meant ; Nothelm, who asked the thirty questions, having described
the four books as the Book of Kings, and Bede following him. In
the treatise on Habakkuk, mentioned lower down, Bede used an
older version than the Vulgate, perhaps because the " very dear
sister in Christ," at whose request he wrote the treatise, used the
older version. It seems probable that Bede used one or other version
according to the circumstances of each case with which he dealt, as
a modern writer uses the Psalter or the Authorized Version in quot
ing the Psalms, according as he prefers the ease of the one or the
accuracy of the other.

The Personal History of Bede 17

On the book of the blessed father Tobit, an alle
gorical exposition, concerning Christ and the Church.

Heads of lections on the Pentateuch of Moses, Joshua,
and Judges.

On the books of Kings and Chronicles.

On the book of the blessed father Job.

On the Parables (Proverbs), Ecclesiastes, and the
Song of Solomon.

On Isaiah, Ezra, and Nehemiah.

On the gospel of Mark, four books.

On the gospel of Luke, six books.

Two books of Homilies on the Gospel.

On the Apostle [i.e. St. Paul], I have carefully
transcribed in order all that I have found in St.
Augustine's works.

On the Acts of the Apostles, two books.

On each of the seven Catholic Epistles, a book.

On the Revelation of St. John, three books.

Heads of lections on all the New Testament, except
the Gospel.

A book of letters to various persons ; one on the
Six Ages of the World ; another on the halting places
of the children of Israel ; another on Isaiah's words,
' After many days shall they be visited ' ; another on
the reason for Leap-year ; and another on the Equinox,
according to Anatolius.

The book of jheJLife and Passion of St. Felix, Confes
sor, translated into prose from Paulinus's metrical life.

The book of the Life and Passion of St. Anastasius,
which was ill translated from the Greek, and worse
amended by some unskilled person, I have amended
as to the sense.

The Life oi_the holy father, monk, and bishop,
Cuthbert. In heroic verse and also in prose.
c

i8 The Venerable Bede

The history of the three Abbats of Jarrow wherein I
rejoice to serve divine piety, Benedict, Ceolfrid, and
Huetbert, two small books.1

The Ecclesiastical History of our island and race,
five books.

A martyrology of the birthdays of the holy martyrs,
in which I have carefully noted all the martyrs I
could find, not only on what day they overcame the
world, but also in what manner of conflict and under
what judge.

A book of Hymns, in various metre or rhythm.

A book of Epigrams, in heroic or elegiac metre.

On the Nature of things and on Times, a book on
each.

On Times, a larger book.

A book on Orthography, alphabetically arranged.

A book on the Art of Metre ; a small book on
Tropes, i.e. on the figures and methods of speech in
which Holy Scripture is written."

He concludes his list with this prayer : "To Thee
I pray, O gentle Jesus, that he to whom Thou hast
granted the enjoyment of draughts of divine know
ledge may some time come to Thee, the fount of all
wisdom, and in Thy presence ever be."

Some treatises not mentioned In this list are included
among Bede's works. Such are his letter to Herefrid
" On Thunder," his Penitential, and a short tract on
Phlebotomy, full of the curious superstitions prevalent
down to recent times as to good and bad stages of the
moon for bleeding.

It is evident that the description of Bede given by

1 It is now one book. Near the middle of the book we come to
the time when Benedict resigned the abbacy. That may have been
the point of division into two books. It reads quite continuously in
its present form.

The Personal History of Bede 19

a well-known writer on the Anglo-Saxons is not an
exaggeration : "He was a phenomenon it is easier
to praise than to parallel " ; "his works were a kind
of cyclopaedia of almost all that was then known."

The epithet " Venerable," so constantly applied to
Bede, is found, both in his own writings and else
where, applied to men of holy life who had not been
canonized. Bede frequently calls the founder of
Wearmouth and Jarrow " the Venerable Benedict."
He is not himself called Venerable in any extant
work of a date earlier than the middle of the tenth
century. The annalist who continued his Ecclesiastical
History for thirty years after his death, calls him
Presbyter Beda in making the entry of his death.
He is most often called Dominus Beda in early manu
scripts of his Homilies, " Sir " being afterwards the
title of the priest who had no University degree down
to the Reformation, and in some districts consider
ably later than the Reformation.1 Writers nearly
contemporaneous with him call him Sanctus Beda,
Saint Bede, or Holy Bede, and we find Bede himself
applying that term to Abbat Benedict Biscop. Other
writers of very early date call him Sacerdos Beda,
Priest Bede, and Doctor Eximius, the Illustrious
Doctor. The title Venerable, as used by Bede himself,
did not imply an advanced age, for he writes of the
Venerable Easterwine, and Abbat Easterwine died
at the age of thirty-six. Thus the epithet as applied
to Bede was of comparatively late origin, and had
no more personal meaning than the epithets ' judicious/
'admirable/ applied to Hooker and Crichton. In
the middle ages such titles displaced the actual names

1 The Zuinglian clergy in the Engadine are called " Ser " when
addressed in the Romauntsch language.

2O The Venerable Bede

of writers of distinction, and ' the Angelic Doctor/
' the Seraphic Doctor/ were quoted under those names
alone.

Marvellous accounts have been given of the origin
of the title Venerable, as applied to Bede. They are
scarcely worth repeating, except as showing to what
credulity the inventors of wonders were able to
appeal. One of these stories assumes that Bede
visited Rome. When he was there, he saw on an
iron gate the letters PPP. SSS. RRR. FFF. A Roman
who observed him standing at the gate examining
these letters, called out to him, " What are you looking
at, English bull ? " Bede's reply was, " I am looking
at what you should be ashamed of," and he read off
four Latin lines, the words of which commenced with
the twelve letters on the gate.1 The Romans were so
much struck by Bede's readiness and ability that they
saluted him as Venerable, a title which the Senate
afterwards confirmed ! The letters mean : —

Pater Patriae Perditus est ,
Sapientia Secum Sublata
Regnum Romse Ruit
Ferro Flamma Fame.

Dr. Giles Englished this as follows : —

Fallen is the Father of this Folk
Learning Leaves you Likewise
Ruined is the Reign of Rome
By War, Waste, Want.

This seems rather childish. But we learn from a
letter of Lull, the Malmesbury monk who succeeded
our greatest Missionary Bishop, Boniface of Credit on,

1 This was written on November 8, 1917, when the German
forces were over the Tagliamento,

The Personal History of Bede 21

as Archbishop of Mainz in 755, that it was of a type
not uncommon then, when literary men occupied their
leisure time with little tricks of various kinds with
letters and words. In Lull's letter — which contains,
by the way, several quotations from Aldhelm, the first
Head of Lull's monastery at Malmesbury — we have
an enlarged form of the same threat of ills to come,
with the explanation : —

RRR rex romanorum ruit

PPP pater patriae profectus est

FFF ferro frigore fame

MMM monitum monumentum mortuus est

VW victor vitalis veniet

AAA aurum a nobis aufert.

Yet another form is found in a Wiirzburg codex of
the same century, containing Homilies of Origen : —

Venit Victor Vincens mundum
Rumpit Regnum Romanorum
Pert Famem Frangit romam
Aufert Aurum Argentumque.

The victor comes who conquers the world,
He destroys the kingdom of the Romans,
He brings hunger, he breaks Rome,
He carries off gold and silver.

Another story makes Bede become blind before his
death. The boy who led him attempted to play
a practical joke upon him. He guided him to a
stony place, and told him that a number of people
were there, anxious to hear him preach. Bede ac
cordingly addressed a homily to the stones, and
at the end of his discourse the stones cried out,
" Amen, Venerable Bede." Another version of this

22 The Venerable Bede

story makes Bede end his sermon with the words,
" Which may God the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Ghost vouchsafe to grant us " : on which angels were
heard to say, " Amen, Venerable Bede/'

A third story relates that one of Bede's disciples
was engaged in writing an epitaph on his master,
when he stuck fast for a word. He got as far as
Hac sunt in fossa Bedae . . . ossa, " in this tomb
are the bones of ... Bede," and could get no further.
He went to bed to sleep upon the difficulty, and next
morning he found the gap filled by the word Venerabilis,
written no doubt by the hand of an angel, according to
the superstition of the time.

Bede's description of himself would seem to be
" Beda presbyter," for in his Life of St. Cuthbert he
mentions a person whom he describes as " major
Beda presbyter," " the greater Bede the presbyter,"
as if counting himself as the lesser Bede the presbyter.
There were two or three ecclesiastics in later times
called Beda, a fact which may account for some of the
impossible stories related of the Venerable Bede ;
such as the story of his being the teacher of Alcuin.
The supposed connection with Alcuin depends upon
a double coincidence of names. The Venerable Bede
had a contemporary called Albinus (a name by which
Alcuin was known), and in Charlemagne's time the.
famous Alcuin had a contemporary called Beda. To
this it may be added, that Alcuin was a Northumbrian,
famous for his learning, a student and master of the
Cathedral School of York, which Bede had advised
Ecgbert, Alcuin's teacher, to found, and that in his
time he wrote a letter to the monks of Jarrow, praising
their predecessor Bede as a student and a writer, and
urging them to imitate his good example.

CHAPTER II

THE CONVERSION OF NORTHUMBRIA

The seven kingdoms — Descent of the kings1 — Deira and Bernicia —
The slave youths in Rome — Pope Gregory's arrangements for the
conversion of England — Edwin of Deira — Importance of York —
A Kentish princess — Letters from Pope Boniface — Paulinus~-
The Northumbrian House of Lords — Coin the archpriest — The
British kings Cadfan and Cadwalla — Defeat and death of Edwin
— Apostasy — Churches built by Paulinus — The West Riding —
James the deacon — Love of music.

WE may now proceed, under Bede's continual guidance,
to consider the interesting story of the conversion of
his own nation to Christianity.

The seven kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy
were not all founded at or about the same time. The
several parts of Britain were wrested from the British
and Romano-British occupants by successive inva
sions. Thus Hengist founded the kingdom of Kent
in 449 ; ^Elli that of the South Saxons, Sussex, in 447 ;
Cerdic that of the West Saxons in 495 ; ^Escwine that
of the East Saxons, Essex, in 527 ; Wuffa that of East
Anglia in 530 ; Creoda that of Mercia, in the Midlands,
at a date not definitely known (he died in 523 a"t an
advanced age, his grandson Penda, of whom we shall

1 The genealogies of the royal families of Deira, Mercia, and
Bernicia, so far as they are represented in these pages, will be
found at the end of this chapter. They are abridged from the com
plete and important lists of the Anglo-Saxon Bishops, Kings, and
Nobles, by my valued friend the late W. G. Searle, published by
the Cambridge University Press in 1899.

24 The Venerable Bede

hear much, being born in 575) ; Ida that of Bernicia in
547 ; ^Elle that of Deira in 560, the latest of all. The
Mercians, East Anglians, Deirans, and Bernicians
were Angles ; Sussex and Essex were Saxon ; the
Kentish men were from Jutland.

All of these kings except ^Elli of the South Saxons
had their pedigree from Woden. The pedigrees of
the Northumbrian Ida and Mile were the longest,
thirteen generations in each case. We have in the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle the pedigree of Woden himself,
going back so far that if we counted thirty years to a
generation his earliest recorded ancestor would be
living in our Lord's time.

It is easy to laugh at such claims. But it is evident
that the men themselves believed in them ; and it is
quite impossible for us in our time to realise the
accuracy of oral genealogies preserved by scalds and
bards, and constantly recited before keen ears at
feasts and drinkings. We have in the recorded history
of the kings of Northumbria one or two hints of the
care with which the genealogies of men of position
were kept. Thus when King Coenred died in 718, the
sixth from Ida, he was succeeded by his fourth cousin,
who came from another son of Ida. In the next
generation, the last of this new line was succeeded by
his fourth cousin once removed, who came from yet
another son of Ida. With all our accurate manuscript
records of the genealogies of the Lady Margaret and
Edward IV it is not very easy to keep quite clear at
every point of the claims of York and Lancaster.
Edward IV and Henry VII were in the same degree
of relationship, in descent from Edward III, as Osric
and Coenred in descent from Ida.

We naturally begin our consideration of the growth

The Conversion of Northumbrian 25

of Christianity in Bede's Northumbria with thq story
of its introduction by Edwin, the king of the whole
land, Deira and Bernicia. Deira may be taken
roughly as Yorkshire and Durham, Bernicia as
Northumberland and Scotland up to the Firth of
Forth. The boundaries on the west are less easily
described. But to begin only with Edwin would be to
miss a claim dear to Northumbrians, the claim that
to their Northumbrian ancestors the introduction of
Christianity to England is due. The story is so well
known that it seems almost unnecessary to repeat it.
Gregory, once the lay Praetor or Prasfect of Rome, and
as such Head of the Senate, and afterwards one of the
most famous of the Bishops of Rome, visiting the
slave market, a year or two before he became pope,
was struck by the handsome faces and fine forms of
some boys on sale as slaves. He asked of what race
they were. He was told that they were Angles. Being
inveterately addicted to playing upon words, he
replied that they were fit to be made Angels. From
what province did they come ? From Deira. Then
they must be freed de ird—from the wrath — of God.
Who was their king ? JSlla. Then they must be
taught to sing Alleluia.

The Saxon homily on Pope Gregory's birthday
tells us that the merchants who had the boys for
sale were themselves English. The idea of English
men taking English boys to Rome to be sold as slaves
is at first sight startling, and needs some explanation,
which we are fortunately able to give. It should be
premised that the demand for slaves had at one time
in the history of Rome been so abundantly met,
and more than met, by the scores of thousands of
captives taken in war, that a slave cost almost nothing,

26 The Venerable Bede

at least in the camp. But for long before the time
with which we are dealing, the Roman arms had been
less prosperous, and slaves taken by Roman armies
had ceased to meet the demand. Property of this
character was in great request, and a large number of
people were concerned in feeding the Roman market
by supplies from various parts of the world. No doubt
there had been a regular slave-route from Britain to
Rome during the Roman occupation of Britain, when
British things and persons were very popular in Rome.

That being premised, if we turn to the earliest
history of the occupation of the country north of the
Humber by the Angles, we find that ^Ethelric, the son
of Ida who had founded the kingdom of Bernicia in
547, and ^lle who had founded the kingdom of Deira
in 560, being ninth cousins, were at war with one
another. ^Ethelric invaded Deira in 588, conquered its
first king ^Elle, who died at an advanced age, and
reigned as king both of Bernicia and of Deira, file's
children escaping to the west. Now Gregory's inter
view with the English slave-masters and slaves was
after 586, for it was only then that he returned to
Rome after a long sojourn in Constantinople as the
representative of the Pope at the court of the Emperor.
The presumption is that the boys were captured at the
invasion of Deira and carried off to Rome before the
War had ended in the death of ,<Elle. It has been shown
elsewhere1 that it is not improbable that Gregory had
heard of some fine specimens of English men as
members of an embassy to the court of the emperor
Justinian at Constantinople, some years before Gregory
himself resided in that city.

Gregory bought some English youths, whether of

1 Augustine and His Companions, S.P.C.K., pp. 16, 17.

The Conversion of Northumbria 27

this group of slaves we do not know, intending to train
them in Christianity and send them to teach their
pagan fellow-countrymen. As we shall see later, there
appears to be a probability, or at least a possibility,
that one of them may have been the first missionary
sent to Northumbria. Then, in his enthusiastic zeal
for missions to the English, he determined to come
himself to England. He escaped from Rome, to the
grief of the citizens when his departure was discovered.
After getting a good distance from the city, he sat
under a tree to rest, and began to read. A locust
settled on his manuscript. With his wonted method
of playing on words, and with the then general belief
in omens, he exclaimed, " Locusta ! Loco sta ! Stay
at home ! ", and he returned with the messengers sent
after him by the Urban Prsefect.

After he became Bishop of Rome in 590, he sent
one of his own trained priests, Candidus, to take
charge of some property of the Roman See at Marseilles.
He bade him buy English boys of seventeen or eighteen
years of age, who might be trained in monasteries to
the service of God. And as all who could be found
there — they were evidently to be bought in England —
were pagans, a priest was to travel with them, to
baptize any who might seem to be dying. The whole
arrangement gives a painfully vivid idea of the trade
in human flesh. Then, in 595, he set in operation a
speedier plan, the mission from Rome of a consider
able party of men of position, for the conversion of the
English, under Augustine, the prior of the monastery
of St. Andrews which Gregory had himself founded on
his own family property on the Caelian Hill, and had
ruled as abbat. Augustine and his band reached
England at the end of 596, or beginning of 597, just

28 The Venerable Bede

1320 years ago this year (1917) . Although the natives
of Deira were the objects of Gregory's first interest,
the Italian mission went to Kent and christianised
that kingdom. Kent was the most accessible of the
kingdoms, and its queen was already a Christian. It
was not till many years later that an attempt was
made to preach the Gospel in Deira.

We can now return to Edwin, the banished son of the
first king of Deira, Mile. He had been received at the
court of Redwald, the king of the East Angles. The
Bernician king ^Ethelric, who had expelled him from
Deira in 588 and had reigned over Bernicia and Deira,
had been succeeded by his son ^Ethelfrith in the
sovereignty of both provinces. ^Ethelfrith had, curi
ously enough, married Acha, one of Edwin's sisters.
After reigning from 593 to 616, he appears to have
become uneasy about the intentions of Edwin, now a
strong man in full middle age. He sent messengers to
Redwald, demanding that he should give up his guest
Edwin to him. After consideration, Redwald refused,
and knowing the character of ^Ethelfrith, which has
come down to us by tradition in very dark colours,
he came upon him with an army before he could get
his forces together, and slew him at the river Idle.
^Ethelfrith left a number of sons by Acha, who had
been married before and had a daughter of whom we
shall hear, as we shall of three of her sons by ^Ethel-
frith.

Edwin in his turn kept the sons of ^Ethelfrith out
of the sovereignty of Bernicia, and reigned over both
provinces with great power. Bede tells us that he was
the greatest of the seven greatest kings of the English,
and had the supremacy over all the kingdoms. This
was the overlordship, known by the title Brytenwalda

The Conversion of Northumbria 29

or Bretwalda.1 Bede does not mention that title ; we
learn it from the Saxon Chronicle, which copies Bede's
account of the seven greatest men in dealing with the
year 827, and out of compliment to King Alfred (872)
adds, "the eighth was Ecgbryht, king of the West
Saxons." Bede's account is as follows : the first who
had this kind of rule was ^lli, king of the South
Saxons ; the second, Ceaulin, king of the West Saxons ;
the third, Ethelbert, king of Kent ; the fourth, Red-
wald, king of the East Angles ; the fifth, Edwin, who
with great power exercised superiority over all the
English and British except the kingdom of Kent ; the
sixth, Oswald, the most Christian king of the North
umbrians ; the seventh, Oswy his brother. It is
conceivable that if Oswy, the third Northumbrian, had
played his cards better, and if succeeding kings had
led better lives, the kings of all England might have
reigned from York, the seat of the empire of Rome in
Britain, the partner of Troves in the honourable
position of the two imperial cities north of the Alps.

Edwin was quite conscious of the importance of his
position. His dignity was so great that he had banners
carried before him, not only in battle but when he was
riding about in peace, visiting cities and vills and
districts with his attendants ; on such occasions he
was also preceded by a standard-bearer. Even when
walking about the streets he had carried before him a
kind of banner which " the English called Tuuf, and
the Romans Tufa," Bede says. TheTufa was one of
the Roman insignia, formed of globes of feathers.

In the year of our Lord 625, Edwin wished to

1 The spellings of the six best manuscripts of the Saxon Chronicle
are : Bretwalda, Brytenwald, Bretenanwalda, Brytenwealda, Bryten-
wealda, Brytenweald. Thus all differ except the two which
agree.

3O The Venerable Bede

marry Ethelburga, otherwise called Tate, the sister of
Eadbald, king of Kent. She was a daughter of Ethel-
bert, the first Christian king. Her brother was willing
that she should marry the king of Northumbria, but
he was not willing that she should marry a pagan.
Edwin gave such assurances respecting religious
matters as overcame Eadbald 's scruples. He pro
mised that he would show no hostility to the new
religion ; nay, he would give full permission to Ethel
burga to practise the rites of her faith, not only for
herself, but for all who came with her, men and
women, priests and attendants. And he added that
if the new religion proved on careful examination to
be more worthy of God than that which he professed,
he was far from saying that he would not adopt it.

Both the king of Kent and his advisers in ecclesi
astical matters must have been forcibly reminded by
this answer of what had occurred in their own land
in the preceding generation. On very similar con
ditions, King Ethelbert had married Bertha, a
daughter of Charibert, king of the Franks, a Chris
tian. He had allowed her the use of an old Romano -
British church which remained near Canterbury, and
may be said still to remain,-^-St. Martin's. He had
jjso allowed her to bring with her a bishop, Liudhard.
Thus, when Augustine landed on the Isle of Thanet,
he found in Kent a pagan king with a Christian wife,
and no doubt Queen Bertha was an important element
in the conversion of the king and kingdom. " The
unbelieving husband shall be saved by the believing
wife." With this example before them, the authorities
of Kent had good reason for trusting their princess
to the Northumbrian king. His conversion would
probably be only a matter of time.

The Conversion of Northumbria 31

The Archbishop of Canterbury at this time was
Justus. He had been a companion and suffragan of
Augustine himself, who died twenty years before the
events of which we are speaking. He selected the
most suitable man he could find as adviser for the
princess. This was Paulinus, whom he consecrated
bishop on July 21, 625 A.D. The personal staff of
the princess being thus completed, she went north
wards, and was married at once to King Edwin.

On Easter Day, 626, the king was residing on the
banks of the Derwent, in his original kingdom of
Deira. Cwichelm, the king of the West Saxons, sent
an assassin with a poisoned dagger to kill him. Bede
says distinctly that the king's name was Cwichelm,
but we know that Cynegils was king of Wessex at
this date 626, indeed he reigned from 611 to 643. It
is evident, from several notices, that Cwichelm was
joint king with Cynegils, but there is considerable
confusion as to what his relationship to Cynegils was,
brother, or son, or cousin ; indeed, it is not very
certain whose son Cynegils himself was. It has
been suggested that Cwichelm 's aim was to restore
the Bretwaldadom to the royal family of the West
Saxons, their king Ceaulin having held it before Red-
wald and Edwin. Ceaulin died in 592, thirty-four
years before the attempt on Edwin.

We may more probably look for a less direct
explanation. There was some curious connection
between the royal families of the West Saxons and
the Welsh Britons. The similarity of name between
Ceadwalla of the West Saxons, who resigned the
kingdom and went to Rome, and Cadwaladr the last
of the kings of all the Britons, has led to much con
fusion, as has also the similarity between the name of

32 The Venerable Bede

the West Saxon Ceadwalla and the name of Cadwaladr's
father Cadwallon, Bede's Caedwalla. The most recent
book on the British Saints1 makes Cadwaladr's
daughter marry Coenbert, Cwichelm's cousin, a sub-
king of Wessex, and become the mother of the West
Saxon king Ceadualla. Cadwallon had been brought up
with Edwin at the court of his father Cadfan, who was
elected king of all the Britons at Chester. Having
been friends in youth, in the time of Edwin's exile,
they became internecine enemies. Edwin conquered
Anglesey from Cadwallon, and Cadwallon eventually
killed Edwin in battle, being himself killed in the
battle of Catscaul by Oswald.

It is an interesting fact that we have the memorial
stone of Edwin's British host and protector, King
Cadfan, or Cad van, or Cataman. It is in the church
of Llangadwaladr in Anglesey, the church named after
Cadfan's grandson Cadwaladr, who became one of the
Welsh saints, having earned as king the nickname
Cadomedd, battle-shunner. The inscription on the
stone is not very legible ; it is an unusually valuable
example of early lettering, and its Latin spelling is
curious. It is also an apt example of the high esteem
in which Welshmen held themselves. It runs thus : —

" Catamanus rex sapientisimus opinatisimus omnium
regum."

King Cataman, the wisest and most renowned of
all kings. (See Plate i.)

This king Cadvan is not to be taken as the saint
of that name. The saint was of a high Armorican
family. He led a large number of his fellow-country
men to Wales in the fifth century, probably under

1 Baring-Gould and Fisher, 4 vols., 1908.

The Conversion of Northumbria 33

pressure of the Franks who were establishing their
position in Gaul under Clovis. St. Cadfan founded
the church called from him Llangadfan, and is com
memorated at Towyn in the remarkable church
dedicated to him there.

The attempt on Edwin's life, whatever its cause and
purpose may have been, very nearly succeeded. He
was seriously wounded, and was only saved by the
interposition first of his chief and favourite minister,
Lulla, and then of a faithful soldier, Forthere, both of
whom were slain by the assassin's dagger. The same
night a daughter was born to him, the first-fruits of his
marriage with Ethelburga. Paulinus declared that
Christian prayers had obtained a safe and easy deliver
ance for the queen from the great pain and peril of
childbirth. In gratitude for this and for his own
deliverance, Edwin gave the infant to Paulinus to be
made a Christian, and on the following Whitsunday she
and twelve others of the king's connections were
baptized. She was Eanflaed, and she married Oswy,
the king of Bernicia and Deira.

Edwin had also promised that if he should succeed
in his war against the king of Wessex, he would cast off
his idols and serve Christ. The hoped-for success came,
and the king returned to fulfil his promise. He at once
abandoned the worship of idols, but he hesitated long
before he would receive the sacraments of the Christian
faith. He went through a course of careful instruction
by Paulinus, and he then conferred with the wisest of
his own advisers. Bede describes him as a man of the
utmost sagacity, a character which the facts recorded
of him completely justify. He sat often and long alone,
debating with himself in silence whether he should
take the great step.

34 The Venerable Bede

At this crisis a letter reached him from Pope Boni
face. The Pope urged him to become a Christian,
and sent him the blessing of his protector Peter, a
shirt, with a golden ornament, and a garment of
Ancyra. The letter, which Bede has preserved, is a
powerful one, stating the case against idols in a vigor
ous manner. Boniface wrote at the same time to Ethel-
burga, pressing her to be instant with the king, in
season and out of season. Though a celibate himself,
the Pope showed a full appreciation of the power of
the weapon he thus brought to bear upon -the king.
He bade her write and tell him of her success, as soon
as possible, when an opportunity of sending a letter by
messenger occurred. And he showed some discrimina
tion in the presents he sent to the queen. In addition
to the blessing of Peter, he sent her a silver mirror,
and an ivory comb inlaid with gold.

Still the king held out ; not, as it would seem, from
any spirit of obstinacy, but because he wished to be
sure about what he was doing. Such a convert is
worth waiting for. Paulinus got a little tired of wait
ing, and determined to make a startling appeal to the
king's superstition. Bede says that we may suppose
the knowledge which enabled him to make this appeal
to have been conveyed in a vision. Another explanation
will occur to the reader.

Some years before this time, Edwin had been in
exile at the court of Redwald of East Anglia. Messen
gers arrived, as we have seen, from the king who had
exiled him, demanding that he should be given up. As
Edwin sat alone one stormy night, awaiting in the
utmost anxiety the decision of Redwald and his
ministers, a stranger came to him, a man with a strange
face, clad in a strange garb. He asked Edwin what

The Conversion of Northumbria 35

he would do for one who could promise him safety for
the present, the throne of his kingdom in the future,
and, beyond the future, such salvation as neither he
nor his fathers had dreamed of. Edwin was full of
promises. He had been wandering, a vagabond, for
many years. He would do anything such a man told
him to do. The stranger then pressed his hand on
his head, and said, " When this sign comes to thee,
remember thy promises and perform them."

Years rolled on. To Edwin, freed long ago from
his fears at Redwald's court, king now of Deira and
Bernicia both, sitting as we left him in constant
thought and d©ubt, Paulinus one day came. He
pressed his hand on the king's head. " Knowest
thou that sign ? " Edwin fell at his feet ; declared
that he must and would become a Christian ; begged
only for a little time, that he might if possible bring
over the great men of the kingdom with him. To
this Paulinus consented, and a great council was
held. Bede's account of it makes us long for a fuller
report.

The king asked each magnate in turn what he
thought of the new doctrines and the new worship.
The chief priest, Coifi, was the first to answer. Coifi
may be taken as the type of a cunning priest without
convictions, one who serves at the altar that the altar
may serve him. " He was anxious that the new
doctrines should be made clearly known to them, for
he had come to the conclusion that there was no reality
in that which he had so far professed. No one had
been more diligent than he in the worship of the gods,
and yet many had more of the king's favour, more of
worldly prosperity, than he with all his care for the
gods. Had those same gods been good for anything

36 The Venerable Bede

at all, they would, of course, have ensured his promotion
to a position of pre-eminence. If the king liked the
new religion better, after looking into it, by all means
let it be adopted." It is only fair to say that Coifi
appeared in a much more favourable light in a second
speech and in eventual action.

The next speaker was a man of very different mould.
It would be well if in all councils in this land there
were men with thoughts so just and expressions so
happy. He is a type of the thinking layman. " What
came before life, and what comes after, all is mystery.
The life of each man, that is all that each man knows."
An apt simile occurred to him, beautiful in its simplicity.
It may well have been that he drew it at the
moment of speaking from an actual event ; for we have
been told that long time had elapsed since July, 626,
and the king and magnates were baptized at Easter,
627, so that the council was held in winter. This was
the simile. " The king and his chief captains and
ministers are sitting in council on a dark winter's day ;
rain and snow without ; within, a bright fire in their
midst. Suddenly a little bird flies in, a sparrow, in at
one door and then out at another. Where it came from
none can say, nor whither it has gone. So is the life
of man. Clear enough itself, but before it, and after
the end thereof, darkness ; it may be, storm. If the
new doctrine will tell us anything of these mysteries,
the before and the after, it is the religion that is
wanted." Others supported this view.

Then Coifi became more worthy of himself. He
begged that Paulinus might be heard. Paulinus was
heard, and was listened to attentively. There were few
such orators as he, who could convert a township in a
sermon. And nature had given him a form fit for

The Conversion of Northumbria 37

an orator. A certain abbat of Peartaneu,1 a man of
singular veracity, Deda by name, told Bede that he
had talked with an aged man who was baptized by
Paulinus in Trent stream, in the presence of King
Edwin. The old man described the eloquent mis
sionary bishop as tall of stature ; stooping slightly ;
with black hair, thin face, nose slender and aquiline,
aspect reverend and majestic. This was the man
who was brought in to expound before the chief
priest of the faith he had come to overthrow, the
precepts and the promises of the faith he preached.
And this was the result. " I have long known, O king,
that there was nothing in our religion ; for the more
I sought for truth in it the less I found it. And here
I freely confess that in this new preaching I find
the truth which there I could not find. It gives us
life, salvation, and happiness eternal. Let us make
haste to abjure and to burn the altars we have con
secrated to such poor purpose." All reason for further
delay had now disappeared. The king's decision was
made. He gave Paulinus licence to preach publicly.
He made the announcement that he had himself
abandoned idolatry, and that he accepted the faith of
Christ. Then he asked Coin who should set about
the destruction of the idols. This was a more serious
question for the king than for Coin. The king had
once believed, and he trembled. Coifi had not
believed, and he did not tremble. " None so fit
as I. I taught the people to worship them. I will
destroy them." So he called for a spear and a stallion
charger, forbidden things both for a pagan priest,
and he galloped up Goodmanham2 lane, and rode

1 Parteney, in Lincolnshire. This was a cell to Bardney.

2 Near Market Weighton in Yorkshire. Called in Bede's time
Godm u ndingham .

38 The Venerable Bede

full tilt at the temple door. The people thought him
mad ; but he pierced the door with his spear, and
called on those with him to finish the work of de
struction. Then they burned the temple, with its idols
and all that was contained within its precincts.

The king and his chiefs were baptized at York on
Easter Day, April 12, 627, in the wooden church
which Edwin had built in honour of St. Peter. The
spring of water which it enclosed is still in existence
under the minster, as are considerable portions of the
walls of stone which followed. Though there had been
a British bishop of York, this is the first church on
record of the series which has reached its climax in
the present glorious Minster. The king at once com
menced a church of stone of larger dimensions, enclos
ing the original oratory, but before the church was
finished he was killed in battle at Hethfeld,1 by an
army of Britons and pagan Mercians, A.D. 633. The
Christian Britons were led by Cadwallon (Caedualla),
the friend of Edwin's youth and the son of his pro
tector Cad van. The pagan Mercians were led by their
king Penda, of whom we shall hear more. Edwin's
first wife, married when he was in exile, was Quenberga,
the daughter of the Mercian king Cearl, Penda 's
predecessor. As in the case of our modern times,
dynastic intermarriages did not prevent national wars.
In those days they did not save the lives of individual
princes. Edwin was forty-seven years of age at the
time of his death, and had reigned seventeen years,
having spent many years in exile.

So long as the king lived after his baptism, that is,
for six years, the work of conversion went on rapidly.
Osfrid and Eadfrid, the sons born to Edwin by Quen-

1 Hatfield, in Yorkshire.

The Conversion of Northumbria 39

berga during his exile, were baptized, and Iffi, the
young son of Osfrid, and many noble and illustrious
persons. Bede tells us of a visit of thirty-six days, paid
by Paulinus to the king and queen at one of their
country seats, during the whole of which time the
bishop catechized and baptized. The people flocked
from all the neighbouring villages and hamlets to hear
him. As soon as they had heard him, they believed.
As soon as they believed, he baptized them in the river
Glen,1 which ran by. This was in Bernicia. In Deira,
we have records of his being often with the king at
his seat at Catterick. There, in like manner, he
catechized and baptized, the Swale being his laver
of regeneration ; for in the early infancy of the Church,
Bede remarks, oratories and fonts could not be made.
We may ask, why ? It would seem that Paulinus, in
his great power as a persuasive orator, forgot or
neglected the less marked but more useful function of
an organizer and establisher. Had Bede been able to
say that after a time this severe personal work became
less necessary on the part of Paulinus, because
oratories and fonts were established, and here and
there, in an ever-increasing number of places, priests
Were found, each the centre of a body of true believers
and acting as a missionary to the pagans around,
we should not have had to record the apostasy of
the land on the death of the king. It is related of
Edwin, that wherever he found a good spring of
water near a frequented road, he had a post fixed at
the place with a brass dish chained to it for the use
of travellers ; and so strict was his administration of
justice that the dishes remained uninjured. We can
but regret that he did not establish in like manner

1 At Yeverin, in Glendale.

40 The Venerable Bede

supplies of the water of life for his subjects travelling
to another world.

Bede does tell us of one church built in Deira by
Paulinus. This was in a district recently taken from
the Romano-Britons of the kingdom of Rheged, at
whose court Taliessin barded and sang. The district
was called Campodonum, probably in the region of
Huddersfield. The pagans who slew Edwin burned
the church and all the town (vill) it served. The
church was evidently of wood, for the altar, Bede says,
was saved because it was of stone. The later kings
replaced the vill of Campodonum by a residence for
themselves in the region of Loidis (Leeds). The stone
altar of Campodonum was taken to the neighbouring
monastery in Elmet wood, and in Bede's time was still
preserved there by the very reverend abbat and priest
Thridwulf . The name of the district Elmete is still in use.

It may be remembered that the people of these two
regions of the old Romano-British kingdom of Rheged
retain two characteristics, one from .their Roman
origin, the other from the British. They are correct
non-aspirators, as the Romans were, not putting an
h in wrong places, and they sing in parts naturally, as
did the Britons and as do the British- Welsh.

Paulinus had also built a church, and this a beautiful
stone church, in a region south of the Humber, after
converting Blecca, the prsefect of the city of Lincoln.
The walls of this church stood in Bede's time, but the
roof had fallen in. It was in this church that Paulinus
performed a remarkable ceremony in the year 627.
Alone, he consecrated Honorius to the archbishopric
of Canterbury. There was no other bishop of England
to join in the consecration. London had long ceased
to have a bishop, and the pagan Londoners did not

The Conversion of Northumbria 41

receive a bishop till some time after this. The Bur-
gundian Felix did not come to Dunwich till 630.
Besides Canterbury, there was only one see in that
province, Rochester, whose bishop Romanus had gone
on an embassy to the Pope and was drowned in this
same year 627.

This visit to the province of Lindissi (Lindsey),1
on which Edwin accompanied him, had one happy
result. To it we owe the personal description of
Paulinus given on page 37. The description accords
well with our idea of a fine specimen of a member of a
British royal family. The Cambrian Annals tell that
the baptizing in the Swale was done by Run, or Rum,
son of Urien or Urbgen, king of the British kingdom
of Rheged. As nothing is said of any inability on the
part of Paulinus to make himself understood by the
English or by the people of the Yorkshire dales, who
must still have been in considerable part British in
speech, it is worth mentioning as a suggestion that
Paulinus may have been one of the captives carried
off to Rome and there trained in Christianity, and
that to him British Gaelic was a native and Anglo-
Saxon an early acquired language.

One thing it appears Paulinus did of an intention
ally permanent character. He set up crosses at
Easingwold, a few miles north of York, which were in
existence in Norman times. The boundaries of an estate
there were then described as running up to the crosses
of Paulinus. Dewsbury, also, claims to have some
stone memorial from his time ; as does Whalley also.
We must remember Paulinus 's crosses when we notice
a remark of Bede relating to Bernicia.

1 The name of the people of Lindissi was Lindisfaras. This is not
infrequently confused with Lindisfarnenses, the people of Holy Isle.

42 The Venerable Bede

On the death of Edwin, Cadwalla, king of the
Britons who still made head against the Northumbrian
English from the mountain-fastnesses of the north
west to which they had retired, and Penda, king of
the Mercians, proceeded to make a great slaughter
of the Northumbrians, especially of those who were
Christians. Cad walla's object was to destroy all
the English, and though a Christian, he was not more
likely to spare the Christian Northumbrians than was
his pagan ally. For even in those early times of
Christianity in this island, the odium theologicum
raged, and there was hatred between the English, who
were in communion with the Canterbury mission, and
the Britons, who had refused to make terms with
Augustine. It will be necessary to speak in more
detail hereafter on this subject (see Chapter V). For
the present, it is enough to say that the Christians
of Northumbria were not likely to fare better with
their conqueror on the ground of his being a Chris
tian too. The people abjured Christianity as lightly
as many of them had taken it up. Paulinus fled
before the storm and returned to Canterbury, taking
with him Ethelburga and some of her children. He
was made Bishop of Rochester, and there he remained
till his death. Christianity almost entirely disappeared
from Northumbria. Osric, Edwin's cousin, succeeded
to the throne of Deira. He had been converted and
baptized by Paulinus, but he went with the stream
and abjured the faith. In Bernicia, the rightful heir,
Eanfrid, whom Edwin had deprived, became king. He
had lived in exile among the Christians in Caledonia,
and had been baptized by them ; but he, too, abjured
the faith when he came to the throne.

It is evident that Paulinus had made two mistakes.

The Conversion of Northumbrian

He had promised temporal rewards, prosperity and
success against their enemies, to those whom he
converted, and when a tide of misfortune set in, the
hollo wness of conversion on such terms was shown.
And, as has been said, he had established nothing.
He left no nucleus from which the light might shine
forth again when the storm was past. A day's preach
ing converted hundreds : he baptized them and left
them. A day's defeat swept them all away.

There is one bright spot in the dark picture. James
the Deacon had been a companion of Augustine.
He was the sweet singer of the party when they first
arrived in Kent, when they made so great an impres
sion on the king by the processional chant with which
they approached him. He had gone to the north
with Paulinus, and he did not fly. He remained for
some time in York, and then went to the neigh
bourhood of Catterick, where the village of Ake-
borough1 took its name from him, as Bede informs
us. Here he did what he could by teaching and
baptizing, and he lived to see times of peace restored,
when he taught to the new generation of Christians
the Roman or Canterbury method of singing. He
was the only sign of an establishment left by Paulinus.
Akeborough still exists, and retains its name in the
form Aikbar, which the Yorkshire people call Yakbur,
as they no doubt pronounced the original Jacobi-
burgus, Jacobur, or Jacbur. It is a small farm house,
and close by is the little stream in which James
baptized his converts. At Hauxwell, on the higher
ground in the immediate neighbourhood, there is in
the churchyard an Anglo-Saxon cross with very simple
interlacing work and a panel which has borne an

1 Jacobi burgus, Jacob's (i.e. James's) town.

44 The Venerable Bede

inscription, one letter of which, the initial of the name
Gacobi or Jacobi, could be read thirty years ago. Fifty
years before that, the curate of the parish and the
then well known Sister Dora made a tracing of the
inscription, which read Hcec est crux sancti Gacobi.
(This is the cross of the Holy James.) James probably
had a well of pure drinking water on this higher
ground, and the village took its name from James's
well, Yaucswell, with the broad pronunciation of the a.
The Irish or Anglo-Saxon G stood for J and was pro
nounced as Y. (See Plate 2.)

The condition of the Church in Northumbria was
worse than that of the church which Paulinus had
built in Lincoln, of which Bede tells — " Its walls stand
in our time, but the roof is fallen in." Indeed the
account given by Stephen Eddi, the biographer of
Bishop Wilfrith, of the condition of the fabric of the
metropolitan church of York, is as apt a commentary
as could have been written upon the state of things
which prevailed after the flight of Paulinus. When
Wilfrith was made bishop, he found the church of the
oratory1 in ruins. The timbers of the roof were
perishing, and did not keep out the weather ; the
windows were without protection, the rain pouring
in and the birds of the air flying in and out ; the
walls were bare, and denied with all manner of abomina
tions.

As Paulinus had so much to do with the beginnings
of Christianity among the races which first drew the
attention of Gregory to the English, we must summar
ize his proceedings on the death of Edwin, following, as
always, Bede's faithful record.

* The first York Minster was so called because King Edwin built
it round the oratory at which he had been baptized.

The Conversion of Northumbria 45

He followed the example of the Italian prelates who
had fled from London and Rochester on an outbreak
of paganism on the death of the first Christian king of
the Londoners. He fled to Kent by sea, taking with
him Ethelburga, whom he had some years before
brought from Kent by the same route. They were
guided by Bassus, a most valiant soldier of Edwin's.
The little Eanflaed was with them, and a son and
grandson of Edwin who died in infancy. Some rich
possessions of Edwin were brought to Canterbury and
kept there, among them a large gold cross and a
chalice of gold.

After the flight of Paulinus he received from the
Pope a present of the pallium, constituting him Arch
bishop of York, and licence to consecrate the Arch
bishop of Canterbury if a vacancy came in his time.
Honorius, whom Paulinus had consecrated, also
received the pall, with a corresponding licence to
consecrate an Archbishop of York. The Pope, like
a wise man, accepted accomplished facts. Paulinus
became Bishop of Rochester, and there he left on his
death the useless pall, which had arrived too late to
make him Archbishop of York. The sixth Bishop of
York in succession to him was the first Archbishop,
just a hundred years after his flight.

We have spoken of James the Deacon as the sweet
singer, and we know the attractive power of the singing
of the arch-cantor whom Biscop imported. It is
evident that the Northumbrians were greatly inter
ested in church music, and it is certain that like other
Anglo-Saxons they were fond of music, whether
ecclesiastical or secular. The Britons were, no doubt,
as their descendants are, naturally inclined to good
singing ; we may suppose that the " Leeds Choir " is

46 The Venerable Bede

a lineal descendant from the choirs in Elmete Wood.
We do not hear complaints of the voices of our Anglo-
Saxon ancestors, as we do of the voices of Germans
and Gauls. John the Deacon declares in his Life
of Pope Gregory the Great — we may wonder, by the
way, whether the Angle youths who captivated
Gregory had as one special charm very musical voices
— that when the Germans or the Gauls tried to sing
the Gregorian chant with its " delicate modulations,"
their barbarous and bibulous throats produced a
rattle like wagons crashing down steps, so that the
feelings of the congregation were rasped and stunned
instead of being smoothed. In Charlemagne's time
the Franks were great offenders in the roughness of
their singing in church. They could not manage to
enunciate the words when they came to the inflections
and trills and runs, the " curls " as they appear to
have been called ; they broke them up in their throats,
rather than expressed them. In England much pains
was taken in guarding against such faults. A Council
of the English Church held in 747, twelve years after
the death of Bede, himself a skilful singer, made a
decree which might with advantage be enforced among
us in this twentieth century. Priests must not
gabble or chatter the service in church after the
fashion of secular poets, lest they destroy or confuse
the rhythm and clearness of the sacred words ; they
must follow a simple and holy melody, after the
manner of the Church ; and if anyone is not able so
to sing, he must read, clearly what it is his business
to say.

Genealogies

DEIRA

Yffi

m. Ethelburga
of Kent

^Elfric

5. Osric
633-634

i. JElle
560-588

Name not
known

Acha
m. ^Ethelfrith
k. of Bernicia

4. Edwin
616-633
m. Cwenburg
of Mercia
1

Oswin
sub. k. of
Deira
644-651

Hereric
m. Bregusuith

Osfrith. Eadfrith

Eanflsed
m. k. Oswy
of Bernicia

Hilda

2. ^Ethelric and 3. /Ethelfrith are placed under Bernicia, being kings of
Bernicia and Deira

MERCIA

3. Ceorl is 4.
outside the pedigree (

606 626
1

. Creoda

!. Pybba
593-606

Penda
)26-6SS

Cwenburg
m. k. Edwin
of Deira

Peada 5. Wulfher<
sub. k. 659-675

653-655
m. Alchflsed
d. of k. Oswy
of Bernicia

7. Coenred
704-709

» 6. ^Ethelred
675-704
m. Osryth
d. of k. Oswy
of Bernicia

8. Ceolred
709-716

Cyneburg Cynesuith
m. sub. k.
Alchfrith
s. of k. Oswy
of Bernicia

9. ^Ethelbald
716-757
great grandson
of 2. Pybba

The Venerable Bede
£

.S;s

w w

O O

»o c

U *•*•

• o
£

g
*C

"I
1

S E

CHAPTER III

THE RESTORATION OF CHRISTIANITY IN NORTHUMBRIA

Oswald and his brothers — Vision of Columba — Origins of our Coro
nation service — lona and Aidan — Union of Deira and Bernicia —
Oswald's death — Oswin in Deira — Aidan's death.

THE two apostate kings, Osric of Deira and Eanfrid
of Bernicia, were both slain by Cad walla in the year
following Edwin's death. This year was so full of
misery to the Northumbrians, and the apostasy of
the kings seemed so dreadful to the Christian his
torians who followed, that by common consent, as
Bede informs us, the year was counted as part of the
reign of Oswald, the next king, and Osric and Eanfrid
were omitted from the list of kings. Oswald was the
brother of Eanfrid, and was a very earnest Christian.
He determined to attack Cad walla, in the year 635,
and collected an army at a spot not far from Hexham
and the Roman wall, called by the English Hefen-
feld. When all was lead^ \e had a large

cross mafl-aiichgeT u
ha

, and he and all his armknelt

for

s armyne
and

slain, and Oswald became king. Not unnatural
the crosj^jsSi^
po^w^-^B^eTells us that in^his^time jm^l ^chips of
wood were cut from it and steeped in water, and the
K 49

5o The Venerable Bede

water thus hallowed cured both man and beast.
Bede, it may be remarked in passing, was a firm
believer in miracles, on which point some information
will be found in Chapter XV. The monks of Hexham
built a church on the spot after Oswald's death, with
good reason, as Bede observes, for until Oswald set
up that cross there had been no sign of the Christian
faith set up in all Bernicia — no church, no cross, no
altar. We have seen that this was not true of Deira.

Oswald at once set about restoring Christianity
among his subjects ; but heneither. sougj^L.to'- the
return of Paulinus, ^r^^a^K^Ctp Ca»te*&ury for
assistance. IJe itacj .been brought up -among the
Scots, and to the friends and teachers of his exile
he turned for assistance in his worthy object. They
sent him a monk from lona, a man whose disposition
was not suited to the work; he returned, and re
ported at a council of the brethren of . Jona^ that" he
had not been able to do any good ; the English were
an uncivilized race, stulEjl^^ After

some anxious debate liad taken- place_ as _tp , .what
should be done, a gentle vqice was keaixL^. JtL was
that of a young monk, Aidan'by name, who wished
to say something on the $&tt$^^^
audience while He spoke ^as*J£pllam*4a< -the unsuc
cessful missioner. " It seems to me, brother, that
you "were too hard with your ignorant hearers. The
apostolic precept enjoins that we should give first the
, milk of easy doctrines, till such time as they are fit
\ to receive deeper truths and perform higher :. .duties."
All present were struck with the idea that Aidan
would be the right man to send, and happily for
Northumbria he was willing to go. He was conse
crated bishop, and he selected Lindisfarne as his see.

The Restoration of Christianity 51

Bede does not explain why he did not choose York,
which had been the see of Paulinus. It may have
been because Paulinus was still living, at Rochester,
where he died A.D. 644, so that there might, perhaps,
be doubt as to the vacancy of the see ; or, it may
have been that Oswald and Aidan were anxious to
have nothing to do with the Canterbury mission, and
another Bishop of York would have reminded them too
much of the former failure, and might have been of
evil omen. But most probably the king would have
it so because he wished to have his ecclesiastical centre
in his own hereditary kingdom of Bernicia, and the
bishop would have it so because his Scottish home was
an island, the holy isle of Hy, which we call lona by a
curious mistake. There was no consonant in the
Gaelic name, nor in the Latin name loua insula, the
isle of I or Hy. An early mediaeval scribe miscopied
loua and wrote it lona, and lona it has remained.

Aidan set about his work in a systematic manner.
He at once obtained from the king a class of twelve
English boys, to be trained for the priesthood. We
trace the after-career of one only of these, but it is
easy to imagine how much good the others may have
done. This one was Eata, Abbat of Melrose, and
eventually selected as Abbat, and Bishop, of Lindis-
farne, under circumstances which made that position
one of peculiar difficulty. If his abbacy lasted ten
years, he was still at Lindisfarne when Bede was
born. He was a true disciple of Aidan, as Bede's
character of him shows, "a man most reverend and
most gentle." Aidan also spent much of the money
which he received from wealthy persons in ransoming
those who had been unjustly sold as slaves, and
many of these ransomed slaves he taught and trained,

52 The Venerable Bede

ordaining them finally to the priesthood. By means
of his Theological College, recruited in these and other
ways, he supplied Northumbria with priests.

The circumstances of the time were, for some years
at least, highly favourable to the spread of Chris
tianity. Oswald was a successful sc^ejsign^^He
united under his- firm Tuie~the four nationalities which
his kingdom in its fullest extent contained, — Angles,
Britons, Picts, and Scots ; for the northern boundary
of Northumbria was often pushed far into what we
now call Scotland. He also effected a real union
between Deira and Bernicia, till then top often at
variance. Thus, wherever Aidan 's emissaries went,
they found peace. The king was as humble as he
was successful. There is a pretty Easter story told
of his unselfishness. One Easter Day he was sitting
down to dinner. Royal dainties filled a silver dish
before him. Aidan was his priest, and hands were
already raised to bless the bread when the almoner
came in, " the king's minister," as Bede describes
him, " to whom the care of the poor had been assigned."
How delightful to think of a Secretary of State for the
Care of the Poor ! Those early people have a good
deal to teach us. He told the king that the streets were
crowded with people begging bread. The king ordered
the whole dinner to be taken out to them, and when
they had eaten, he cut up the silver dish, and divided
the pieces among them. Aidan was overjoyed on
witnessing this pious act, and taking the king by the
right hand exclaimed, " May this hand never decay ! "
And so it would seem it fell out ; for when Oswald was
slain in battle, his right hand and arm were cut off,
and Bede himself saw them still fresh, enclosed in a
silver case, at Bamborough. The arm of Oswald came

The Restoration of Christianity 53

into the possession of the Abbey of Peterborough. King
Stephen saw it there.

The king took an active part in helping on Aidan 's
work, applying himself industriously to build and
extend the Church of Christ in his kingdom. Aidan
had not learned to speak the English tongue with ease,
while, on the other hand, the king, who had been
brought up in Caledonia, understood the bishop's
Scottish language well. When Aidan preached, it
was delightful, Bedereports^ to see and hear the

Tcinginfprprp.tiTip^fn ^jifi <ffipt""e Ot1f1 JT**"0*01^ tne

r&o|»i;gfl tf6i5Tiis mouth .

Oswald's moth

er was sister to the thoughtful and
good King Edwin, and we may not unfairly add him
to the long list of famous men who have owed to their
mothers much more than their natural life.

The king was killed in a great battle at Maser-
feld,1 on August 5, 642, in the thirty-eighth year of
his reign. He was slain by the same king who had
killed Edwin, the pagan Penda, king of the Mercian
English, who were still a pagan people. The spot
where his body fell became the scene of many striking
stories of miracles, some account of which will be given
later. Bede attributes the wonder-working power of
the place to the intercessions of Oswald in behalf of
those who resorted to it in faith. He remarks, that it
should be no matter of surprise that Oswald's prayers
in the heavenly kingdom proved so efficacious, for
while governing his temporal kingdom he was instant
in prayer, and took more pains about the kingdom that
is eternal. The reader is probably familiar with the

1 There is a Merserfield near Winwick, in Lancashire. Oswestry,
sc. Oswald's tree, has been suggested as the scene of the battle.
Oswald's head was found in the same tomb with Bede's bones in
1104, at Durham.

54 The Venerable Bede

conventional representation of an Anglo-Saxon king,
sitting on the throne with his hands either pressed
together or held apart, in either case pointed towards
heaven. Oswald may have been the original of this
representation, for so constantly was he praying or
giving thanks to God, that whenever he sat he held his
hands turned upwards on his knees. Though he died on
the field of battle, he died in prayer, and this fact passed
into a proverb. Unfortunately Bede leaves us only the
Latin form, which has a certain proverbial rhythm,
but is doubtless far inferior in character and spirit to
the English original : —

God have mercy upon their souls !
Quoth Oswald as he fell to the ground.

The church of Winwick claims in a remarkable —
indeed unique — manner to have been a spot much
favoured by Oswald. There runs round the exterior
of the church a Latin inscription in large capitals :
its first words are — "Hie locus, Oswalde, quondam
placuit tibi valde " (" This place was very dear to thee
of yore, Oswald").

There is preserved at this church the central boss and
the arms of what has been a very noble Anglo-Saxon
cross, of unusual size. This and the arm of a cross
preserved in the crypt at Lastingham are probably
the largest that we now possess. Panels on the arm
at Winwick have reference to the death of Oswald.
Plate 3 shows a panel which represents his dismem
berment.1

We cannot part with Oswald without looking into

1 The Vicar of Winwick, the Reverend M. L. Smith, has kindly
sent a photograph of this panel. I had figured it roughly but
correctly thirty years ago, in a paper read before the Lancashire
and Cheshire Antiquarian Society.

The Restoration of Christianity 55

a matter of great interest, involving a suggestion that
Oswald and Aidan have left their mark upon our
Coronation Service. We have to leave Bede for our
facts in this case, and turn to Adamnan's Life of St.
Columba. Adaranan was the ninth Abbat of lona, of
the same royal Irish race as Columba. He was abbat
from 679 to 704, and was the instructor of a learned
Anglo-Saxon prince, Aldfrith, who succeeded to the
throne of Northumbria in 685 as we shall see. He
visited King Aldfrith on more than one occasion.
During his visit in 688 he spent some time at Jarrow,
and was there converted by Abbat Ceolfrid to the
method of reckoning Easter adopted at the synod of
Whit by, of which we shall hear. Bede no doubt saw
him on that occasion, of which he gives a description.
He has high praise for Adamnan, evidently well
deserved. Ceolfrid himself wrote an account of
Adamnan's visit which Bede has preserved for us in
the long letter on the Easter question written to
Naiton, king of the Picts, in 710. There can be little
doubt, if any, that Bede compiled the letter, but in it
Ceolfrid speaks in the first person. He tells Naiton
that he discovered wonderful wisdom, humility, and
religion in Adamnan's words and behaviour.

Oswald, we must remember, had lived in lona, and
there had learned the magic charm of the records of
Columba 's sayings and doings.

Adamnan tells us in the first chapter of his Life
of St. Columba that his predecessor Failbe told him
an interesting fact, which he had heard from the
mouth of King Oswald himself when the king was
relating the circumstances to Seghine, the abbat of
his time. The day before his great fight with the
Britons, who had overrun Northumbria after the

56 The Venerable Bede

defeat and death of Edwin, Oswald was lying in his
tent, wearied with the work of marking out his camp.
He slept. Columba appeared to him in a vision. He
announced himself to Oswald by name, and addressed
him as the Lord addressed Joshua the son of Nun
before he crossed Jordan, " Be strong and play the
man ; I am with thee, as I was with Moses." He
added the charge to go out that night and fight, his
enemy Cation (Cadwalla) would be delivered into his
hands. Those words, " Be strong and play the man/'
were copied into the Anglo-Saxon forms for the
coronation of kings, and they form the anthem in our
own Coronation Service.

We can now turn to Adamnan's record of the form
of service used by Columba at the coronation of the
first independent king of the Irish settlers on the
west coast of the country we call Scotland.1 Up to
Columba 's time their lords had been subject to the
superior king of the people who had remained in
Ireland. Adamnan got the account from a Life of
Columba written by a previous abbat. We may safely
presume that it had come down to them direct from
Columba.

It is evident that Columba had to make up his mind
on two important points. There was a vacancy.
Which of two brothers should he advise them to take ?
And should he declare that the one chosen was to be
an independent sovereign, or keep up a succession of
inferior lords ? To him thus doubting, there came a
vision of the night. An angel presented to him a
crystal codex, a form for the coronation of kings, and
bade him read it. There he found the name of the
brother he was to appoint. The crystal codex was
1 See page 88.

The Restoration of Christianity 57

presumably a book with crystals worked into the
binding, a very favourite practice in times rather later
than that, or possibly with a cover of crystal.

Then Adamnan gives us the account of the ordina
tion of the king, ordination being the term used. From
this we learn that in the year 574 there was (i) a set
form for the ordination of kings, (2) a sermon, appar
ently added by Columba, (3) the imposition of hands,
(4) an address of exhortation, that the sceptre might
not pass out of the hands of the king and his descend
ants, and (5) presumably the king seated, almost cer
tainly on some special stone, holding in his hand a
sceptre, and (6) the solemn blessing of the king when
ordained.

There is now no imposition of hands in our Corona
tion Service, but an Anglo-Saxon form has a prayer
for " this thy servant who by the imposition of our
hands is this day constituted queen." The exhortation
to good rule, in order that the sceptre might not
depart from the sovereign and his descendants, was
taken word for word into the Anglo-Saxon forms,
though we have it not. All the rest we have, direct
from Columba, with Columba 's words in the vision to
Oswald, incorporated no doubt when Oswald was
crowned by Aidan. It is quite probable that Oswald
and Aidan had seen a Columban coronation at lona ;
we may take it as certain that from lona they took
their form. From Oswald's coronation it came down
to King George V.

When Oswald was slain, the old dual arrangement
came into force again. His brother Oswy succeeded
him, having as his partner in the kingdom King
Oswin, a son of the apostate Osric. Oswin ruled in
Deira, and was a happy contrast to his father. He

58 The Venerable Bede

was tall and of a graceful figure, courteous and agree
able in manner. He was liberal to all, high and
low, and by his noble qualities of body and mind
he won the love of all. Chief of his many charms
was the grace of humility. There is a touching
story of Aldan's conviction that he was too good to
live, a story which gives us a valuable insight into
the characters of the two men, and reflects great
credit on the king. Oswin had given Aidan a very
fine horse for any journey in which speed was neces
sary, and for assistance in crossing rivers ; for on
ordinary occasions Aidan travelled on foot. One
day Aidan met a beggar, who asked an alms. Having
nothing else to give, he gave him the horse with
its royal trappings. The king heard of this, and when
next they met, he asked the bishop as they went
in to dinner why he had given that horse, fit for a
king, to a beggar. Were there not plenty of other
horses in the king's possession, of less value or of
different breed, any one of which he might have
given to the beggar instead of the one which the
king had specially selected for the bishop's own use ?
Surely, the bishop replied, the son of a mare was not
more dear to the king than that son of God whose
needs he had relieved ! They went in to dinner, and
the bishop sat down. But the king did not sit. He
had just returned from hunting, and he stood before
the fire warming himself, chafing, we may suppose,
at the bishop's reckless almsgiving, and at the rebuke
he had received. Suddenly his mood changed. He
ungirt his sword and threw himself at the bishop's
feet, entreating him to be reconciled. From that
time forward, he penitently declared, he would never
mention the matter again, nor would he ever again

The Restoration of Christianity

question any gift which the bishop might make to
the sons of God from the king's possessions. Aidan
was frightened by such humility. He sprang from
his seat and raised the king, assuring him of com
plete reconciliation, and begging him to cast off his
sadness and take his meal with cheerfulness. The
king recovered his spirits, but the bishop grew more
and more sad, till at last he burst into tears. His
attendant priest asked him in the Scottish language,
which the king and his ministers did not understand,
why he wept. " Because I feel sure he is not long
for this life. So humble a king I never saw. This
people is not worthy of such a king." And in all
too short a time this presentiment was shown to be
just. Oswy quarrelled with Oswin, and led an army
against him. Oswin collected an army, but found
he was not strong enough to face his brother king ;
so with characteristic resignation he disbanded his
forces, and with one attendant, a trusty soldier,
Tondhere, retired to the dwelling of a friend, Earl
Hunwald. Hunwald betrayed him to Oswy, and the
humble king and the faithful soldier were slain together
at Ingethlinum, on August 20, 642. The monastery
of Gilling, near Richmond, was built here soon after,
that prayers might be offered for the king who was
slain and for the king who slew him. We have a small
inscribed stone of those times bearing the names of
Oswin and Tondhere.

On the twelfth day after the murder of Oswin, Aidan
followed the friend he had loved so well. He left
behind him a most salutary example of self-denial and
untiring labour. It was the highest commendation
of his doctrine, Bede says, that he taught no other
wise than as he and his followers lived. Whenever

60 The Venerable Bede

he met any on his journeys, rich or poor, if they were
heathen, he exhorted them to embrace the true faith,
if Christians, he sought to strengthen them in the
faith, and to quicken them to almsgiving and other
good works. He and all his companions, whether
shorn monks or laymen, spent the time which was
not occupied in active work, in reading the Scriptures
and learning psalms, " so different," Bede says, " from
the slothf ulness of our times." If he was invited to eat
with the king, he went with one clerk only, or two, and
as soon as he had made a slight repast, he hastened
to return to his reading or writing. In his time,
many religious men and women were induced Jby his
example to fast always till three o'clock on Wednes
days and Fridays, except during the fifty days follow
ing Easter. Bede's praise of him is unbounded,
save only on the vexed question of the rule for the
determination of Easter (see Chapter IV). He sum
marizes the good bishop's character as follows : " Love
of peace and charity ; self-denial and humility ; a
mind superior to anger and avarice ; despising pride
and vain-glory ; industrious in keeping and teaching
the heavenly commandments ; diligent in reading and
in vigil ; reproving the haughty and powerful with the
authority becoming a priest, and as tender in com
forting the afflicted." And even on the one subject
on which men of Bede's views differed from men of
Aidan's views, and differed with a hatred which even
in these days it is not easy to imagine or comprehend,
Be.de wrote of him with a charity \yorthy of an imita
tion. " Although he observed not the true time of
celebrating Easter, yet the object he had in view in
all that he said, did, or preached, was the same as
ours, that is, the redemption of mankind through the

The Restoration of Christianity 61

, and Ascension j£l theJflan Jesus
^ and Man." Who

ax ^

of Aidan's death afford a singular - illus

tration of fhe primitive simjriicittt-oihkJiffl Ha was
at_one of the king s country houses when his .. end .drew
neaj. lliis'^wSs a favourite resort of his, for there was
a church there, and he had also a sleeping-place, so
that he could make it a centre for excursions through
the neighbouring district. He did this also at other
of the king's houses, having nothing of his own but
a church and a few fields near it. When his com
panions saw how ill he was, they made a sort of tent
for him, apparently a lean-to, attached to the west
wall of the church. And there he died, leaning on a
beam placed as a buttress tortKf^uppprTof the wall.
Bede relates that when the village and church were
burned some years later by Penda of Mercia, whose
course of evil-doing seems unending as we read
chapter after^ chapter of the history, the beam was
not burned. The church was rebuilt, and the beam
was restored to its place as a buttress, and again the
church was burned and again the beam was not
burned ; yea, though the fire blazed through the
hoks by which it was fastened to the church, yet was
.not the beam burned. After this second preservation,
tKe beam 'was c stored as a relic in the renovated
church, and Bede tells us that in his time it worked
miracles. Aidan's church establishment in North-
umbria proved as tenacious of existence as the buttress
on which he died.

His death was only thirty years before the birth of
Bede. He was succeeded by another Scotic prelate,
Finan, who did indeed enter into his labours.

CHAPTER IV

CHRISTIANITY IN NORTHUMBRIA TO THE TIME
OF BEDE

King Oswy — Christianity in Mercia — Penda slain — Date of the
Easter Feast — The Conference of Whitby — Wilfrith — Colman —
Migration to Ireland — Alchfrith — His memorial cross at Bew-
castle — Runic inscriptions.

Two years after Aldan's death, his work bore fruit
far beyond the bounds of Northumbria. The pagan
Penda of Mercia was still living, and he had made
his son king of the Middle Angles. This son, Peada,
was anxious to marry the daughter of Oswy of North
umbria. Oswy refused to give him ^Iflaed unless
he promised to become a Christian. He heard the
Christian preachers, and their arguments were sup
ported by the friendly persuasions of his brother-in-
law Alchfrith, son of Oswy, who had married a
daughter of Penda, Cyniburga. He was so completely
won over that he declared he must become a Christian
whether he obtained Elfleda1 or not. Accordingly
he came with his earls and soldiers, and was baptized
at a village near the Roman wall, by Finan, the
successor of Aidan. This, Bede says, was a noted
village of the kings, called At the Wall. It is
probably represented now by Benwell, the name Ben-

1 This is a more usual spelling than ^Elflaed. The Anglo-Saxon
personal names appear under various forms, chiefly because Bede
latinises them.

Christianity in Northumbria 63

well being taken to mean the Head of the Wall. He
then returned to his own kingdom with four priests,
one a Scot, Diuma, the others English : Cedd, Adda,
and Betti. The priests had great success among the
Middle Angles, and even among the Mercians ; for to
the honour of Penda, murderous old pagan as he was,
it is recorded that he was quite willing to allow his
son's preachers to come into Mercia, if any Mercians
wanted to hear them. And we cannot but feel respect
for him when we read that he heartily despised such
professing Christians as he saw living evil lives, —
" base wretches, not to do what the God they believe
in tells them." The four priests mentioned above
were the direct means of converting to Christianity the
Middle Angles, the Mercians, the East Saxons, and,
to speak generally, a great part of England, exclusive of
Northumbria and Kent and the extreme south and
south-west.

At Jength Penda was slain ; and as a sort of com
pensation for all the harm he had done to Northumbria
and its Christianity through many long years, his
death proved to be an important epoch in^Qirigtian
progress in the kingdom. In the year 655^ twenty
years only before the birth of Bede, King Oswy had
determined to put an end, if possible, to the continual
harass; caused by Penda 's hostility. He had accord
ingly offered to Penda a large amount of property
if he would let Northumbria alone. Penda refused
the offer of a part of the land, and set himself to
work to take the whole, and to extirpate the North
umbrian English. Oswy, when he heard of the
refusal, exclaimed that he would offer his gifts to a
king who would accept them, the Lord his God.
He bound himself by a vow to give to God twelve

64 The Venerable Bede

farms for building monasteries, and to dedicate his
infant daughter to perpetual virginity, if he proved
victorious against Penda. With much inferior forces
he and his son Alchfrith, the sub-king of Deira, met
the enemy of their house on the banks of the river
Vinwed,1 in the district of Loidis (Leeds), and there
they slew Penda, and broke the strength of Mercia.
This battle was fought on the I5th of November,
much later in the year than the other battles of which
we have spoken, and the flooded state of the river
aided greatly in the destruction of the pagans. Oswy
carried out his vow. He gave six portions of land in
Deira and six in Bernicia, each containing ten families,
according to the old English method of reckoning the
extent of land. In these, as Bede says, war was to
cease ; monks were to engage in the warfare that is
spiritual, and were to pray for the peace of the land.
This foundation of jnonasteries on a large scale natur
ally "gave a great impetus to the monastic, movement.
The little jElflsed was sent to her relative Hilda, at that
time abbess of Heruteu, i.e. " the island of the stag/'
now known as Hartlepool. Two years later, Hilda
obtained a possession of ten families on the Yorkshire
coast, at Streoneshalch, where she founded the
monastery afterwards so well known as the abbey of
Whitby. Here ^Elflaed lived for sixty years. Only
ten years or so before Oswy's vow, there was so great
a dearth of monasteries in the land, that many who
wished to enter the monastic life were obliged to go to
the Franks or the Gauls.

It appears that Aidan had not built a church at
Lindisfarne. Finan commenced one immediately

1 Supposed by Camden to be the Aire, in Yorkshire. More prob
ably the Went or Wynt, south of the Aire.

Christianity in Northumbria 65

upon his succession to the bishopric, building it of
hewn oak, and thatching it with reeds, after the
manner of the Scots, Bede says. A later bishop,
Eadbert, took off the thatch, and covered the roof
and walls with lead. In Finan's time the contro
versy about the true time^oT'Seeping Easter, already
alluded to, began to assume considerable dimensions.
The question in its full detail need not now be entered
into, but some of its main features are easily intelligible,
and must be stated here.

Our rule for determining which Sunday in any year
is to be kept as Easter Day is stated in the " Tables
and Rules " prefixed to the Book of Common Prayer,
as follows : Easter Day, on which the rest of the
movable Feasts and Holy-days depend, is always the
First Sunday after the Full Moon which happens upon
or next after the twenty-first day of March; and
if that Full Moon happens upon a Sunday, Easter Day
is^the Sunday after. This very precise rule is stated in
a net form, and is best thus stated. It fixes the atten
tion upon the full moon. The early discussions turned
upon the preceding new moon, fourteen days before.
It comes of course to the same thing, but the rule is less
briefly stated if it employs the new moon as the test.

Two points of this rule are quite definite ; (i) Easter
Day is always to be a Sunday ; and (2) if the vernal
full moon falls on a Sunday, Easter Day is not that
Sunday, it is the Sunday after. Both of these points are
the fixed result of early controversies. The third point
is that the full moon is to be the full moon on the
2ist of March, if that day is full moon ; if it is not full
moon, then the full moon next after the 2ist. In no
case is Easter Day to be before or on the vernal
equinox, the 2ist of March.

66 The Venerable Bede

Easter Day commemorates the Resurrection of
our Lord. That event is generally understood to
have occurred on the third day from the Passover,
i.e. the third day from the I4th day of the month Nisan.
The month Nisan commenced with the new moon of
the vernal equinox, and thus the Passover, the I4th
day of the month, fell on the day of the full moon, and
the Resurrection Day on the third day after. Easter
Day, however, does not represent that third day. In
the earliest times of Christianity, the Paschal Feast
combined the commemoration of the Passion and of
the Resurrection, and its commencement — our Easter
Day — coincided rather with the Passion than with the
third day.

The greater part of the earliest Christians said that the
Feast must commence on a Lord's Day, and not on the
I4th day of the moon if that was not a Lord's Day. The
others persisted that the actual I4th day of the moon
must be treated as the anniversary, whatever day of
the week it might be. These latter were called Quarto-
decimans, from the Latin word meaning Fourteenth ;
and as it happened that some of the early Quarto-
decimans held erroneous views on some points of
doctrine, Quarto-decimanism became stamped as a
heresy. The observance of the Sunday next after the
actual day fixed by the change of the moon became
the orthodox and Catholic custom. This our rule
expresses.

The British Church, of which some account is given
in Chapter V, was accused of being Quartpdeciman.
They were not Quartodecimans in the old and accepted
meaning of that word ; but their opponents could
claim to call them Quartodecimans, because they kept
Easter Day on the fourteenth day of the moon if that

Christianity in Northumbria 67

fell on a Sunday, whereas the Church of the West
Sun^^ ?litons

by the old rule for the deter

mination of the Passover. But they did not agree with
tb;e. Church of the West in their rule to decide which
nescmooa to take astj^e.. basis of their calculations. The
Britons said that theirs was the old rule, from which
the Church of the West had departed.

ItJ&dJxren arcangej^aj:^ JS& J^3&£& jaOtoBa-r A.D.
325, that the Patriarch of Alexandria should obtain
the assistance of Egyptian astronomers, and should
announce to the Christian world each year what
was the true day of Easter. The announcement was
made in a formal letter addressed by the Patriarch to
the Bishop of Rome, and a manuscript containing a
most interesting series of these letters, written by
Athanasius, was found early in last century by the late
Archdeacon Tattam in the convent of St. Mary Deipara,
in the desert of Nitria. The letters have been pub
lished, under the name of " The Festal Epistles of
Athanasius." The Patriarch Athanasius, it may be
mentioned, calls himself Pope in these letters. Some
changes were made later, and the British Christians
certainly had something to say for themselves when
they argued that it was hard to charge them with
error when they had kept to the old rule throughout.
It would seem that after the withdrawal of the Roman
forces early in the fifth century, the British Church
was not kept informed of ecclesiastical changes outside.

The Alexandrian rule had not permanently regu
lated the incidence of Easter Day. The Alexandrians
held that the selection of the vernal new moon was
limited to the period March 8 to April 5, both

68 The Venerable Bede

inclusive, the altered Western style took the period
March 5 to April 3, both inclusive. While that
made a great difference between the two Easter
Days in some years, it much more frequently made no
difference at all. If a new moon came on March 5 or
March 6, the West took it as the vernal new moon and
March 19 or 20 as the vernal full moon ; Alexandria
waited for the next full moon. If a new moon came
on April 4 or April 5 Alexandria took it as the vernal
new moon and April 18 or 19 as the Easter full moon ;
the West had had its vernal new moon on March 7 or 8,
and its Easter full moon on March 21 or 22. If a new
moon came on any of the days from March 8 and
April 3, both inclusive, the Alexandrian rule and
the Western rule gave the same day for Easter Day.
In the infrequent cases of a new moon at the earlier
or the later extremity of date, their Easter Days
differed by about a month. To take a particular case,
in 417 A.D. there was a new moon on March 6. This
was taken to be the Paschal Moon in Rome. Fourteen
days brought the full moon on March 20. That was
a Tuesday in 417. Five days more gave March 25
as Easter Day. On March 25 the Eastern Church
was deep in the Lenten fast. Alexandria had rejected
the new moon of March 6 as being too early, and was
waiting for the next new moon on April 3, which would
give them April 22 for Easter Sunday. Our present
rule would have agreed with Alexandria against Rome,
for we take March 7 as the first possible day for the
Paschal moon to begin, March 21 being the earliest
day we recognize for the Paschal full moon.

It has beejLgaid above that the .QQntawersjron this
subject assumed considerable dimensions in the time
of Finan. Bede says that so long as Aidan4ivedT the

Christianity in Northumbria 69

question was allowed to remain dormant, the universal
respect in which he was held making every one un
willing to raise an objection to any part of his pro
ceedings. " His time of keeping Easter was patiently
tolerated by all men. They knew that he could not
act in a manner contrary to the custom of those who
t him to Northumbria, and they saw that he in-

.all works _of faith,

piety, and love." Here is a happy example of tolera
tion. At the same time there is no evidence of any
great amount of feeling against Aidan's practice.
James the Deacon, trie sweet singer, had maintained
the 'Canterbury practice, which was that of Rome ;
but' his influence could be but small compared with
that of the king and of Aidan, both of whom, were
accustomed to the Scotic rule of Easter, which was
the same as that of the British. During Finan's
episcopacy, two or three circumstances combined to
throw more weight into the Canterbury or Roman
sc.ale. A Scottish monk and saint, Ronan, who had
been trained on the Continent, held a disputation
with Finan, alleging that the Scots were at variance
with the universal Church in their rule for keeping
Easter. He made no impression upon Finan, who
seems to have spoken his mind rather freely, " being
of a hot and violent temper." But the disputation
called a good deal of attention to the subject. Queen
Eanfleda, too, had seen the Canterbury rule observed
in Kent, and she had with her a Kentish priest,
Romanus, who followed that rule. Thus it fell out on
one occasion, that when the king was enjoying the
Easter feast, his enjoyment was spoiled by the absence
of his consort's countenance, she and her damsels
being still deep in the Lenten fast. The queen, we are

70 The Venerable Bede

told, was keeping Palm Sunday on the day which the
king called Easter Day. This was therefore the day of
full moon, for the British allowed that day as Easter
Day, while the others said (as we do) that Easter Day
is the Sunday not on but next after the full moon.
The full moon was on a Sunday in the years 645, 647,
648, and 651. The year 651 suits Bede's narrative.
The reason for our rule is, that if the full moon falls
on a Sunday, to keep that day as Easter Day is to
begin to keep Easter before the full moon has actually
come.1 Then, in the year 661, yet another Scot suc
ceeded Finan, Colman by name, and the controversy
broke out with violence. Oswy kept the old Easter,
but his son Alchfrith, as well as the queen, kept the
new. Alchfrith had come under the influence of Wilfrith,
a Northumbrian born, but trained at Lyon and an
enthusiastic Romanizer ; and, as Bede says, he
rightly thought that Wilfrith 's doctrine ought to be
preferred to all the traditions of the Scots. Bede lets
us have a peep behind the scenes which shows us the
vigour of Alchfrith 's convictions. He tells us that
Alchfrith gave Wilfrith the monastery of Ripon, with
land containing forty families. This he had a short
time before given to those who followed the practice
of the Scots ; but, inasmuch as, " being left to their
choice," they quitted the place rather than abandon
their practice, he made it over to Wilfrith.

With^such influences at yyprk^ihe. _ cp^oyersy soon
came to a head. A synod was held in 664 at the
monastery of Streoneshalch, or the Bay of the Light
house, now Whit by. King Oswy presided. He him-

1 For example, if the full moon actually came at n a.m. on a
Sunday, and that day was kept as Easter Day, several hours of the
feast would be kept before the arrival of the full moon.

Christianity in Northumbria 71

self followed the Scotic practice, but, as became a
pre^idejiLheh.eld an independent course in the synod.
HiTs^iAlc^rritH was 'fEefe, a vigorous partisan of the
Catholic custom, as its supporters called the Canter
bury, i.e. the Roman, way. Jamej^ the nDeacpn~the
perenriial Jarnes— is said by Bede to have been there,
though it was now nearly seventy years since he sang
his processional hymn in the isle of Thanet. He was on

iiiui_jiilfc j iip""*"*1*""^!^^^ «/ .ft..^' —- L i "*M ^-^**^vM*<M»*)Naaiirttiifc»ii*<»*^'

the Catholic side, of course ; so was Romanus, the
Kentish priest of Queen Eanfleda ; .... so was Agilbert,
bishop of Dorchester among the West Saxons, who
was at the time paying a long visit to his friends, Alch-
frith the prince and Wilfrith , the Abbat of Ripon.
Agilbert 's priest Agatho was there on the. same side,
and Wilfrith. On the other side were Colman, bishop
of Lindisfarne, with his Scottish clerks ; the. Abbess
Hilda and her train ; and the venerable bishop Chad,
trj:e brother of Cedd of whom we have spoken above.
To the honour of every one, it is reported by the
Catholic part that Chad was the interpreter for J>oth
sides, — a most vigilant interpreter, Bede assures us.

The king made a short opening speech. " They all
expected the same kingdom of Heaven ; they ought
not to differ in the celebration of the mysteries of
the kingdom. What they had to do was to inquire
which was the true tradition. That once determined,
all should follow it." Then he called on his Bishop,
Colman, to speak. Colman " kept what he had
received from his fathers. They in turn had received
it by tradition from the blessed Evangelist St. John,
the disciple whom Jesus loved." He spoke at some
length, but this was the pith of his discourse.

The king called on Agilbert. Whether as a happy
device or as a matter of real necessity, Agilbert

72 The Venerable Bede

pleaded the want of sufficient familiarity with the
English tongue. Might his disciple Wilfrith speak for
him ? The synod assented, and thus the keenest
partisan of the Catholic way, the most powerful
speaker in the assembly, was put in the forefront of
the discussion, a place to which his own position could
not have entitled him. Bede gives his speech, and the
retorts of Colman and Wilfrith's replies, in a form
which renders it probable that we have a report more
or less verbatim.

Wilfrith informed his hearers that the Easter which
the Catholic party observed was "that which he had
himself seen observed by all in Rome,— Rome where
St. Peter and St. Paul lived, taught, suffered, and werg
buried/* We should .note that statement of the double
claim of Rome to priority ; not that it was the-see of
St. Peter, it was the place where the twin chiefs-Jay.
He had seen the same kept in Italy and France when
he travelled through those countries. He found that
in Africa, Asia, Egypt, Greece, in all parts of the world
where there was a Church of Christ, the same Easter
was kept by all nations and languages ; except, indeed,
Colman and his complices the Picts and Britons, who
in remote islands' — and only in parts even of them —
opposed the universe.

Here Colman broke in with a repetition of his
argument. " Could he and his be thus accused of folly
and obstinacy, when they did as did St. John, who
laid his head on his Lord's bosom ? "

Then Wilfrith proceeded to demolish Colman 's argu
ment. If Colman relied — he retorted — upon autho
rity, for his statements respecting the methods of St.
John and St. Peter, he must have access to sources of
information which had since been closed to the student

Christianity in Northumbrian 73

of the New Testament and of ecclesiastical history.
Wilfrith asserted — and one assertion was as good
as another — that St. John followed literally the
Jewish rule, and, as a concession to Jewish converts,
kept Easter on the day next but one after the day of
Passover, whether week-day or not. As parallels to
this proceeding, Wilfrith quoted St. Paul's circum
cision of Timothy, his offerings in the Temple, his
shaving his head with Aquila and Priscilla. But when
St. Peter preached at Rome, Wilfrith continued, he
taught men to wait till the Lord's-day between the
fifteenth and the twenty-first day of the moon. Thus
Colman followed neither the practice of St. John nor
that of St. Peter ; for he did not keep Easter on a
week-day, and his Easter Day was the Lord's-day
between the fourteenth and the twentieth day of the
moon, so that the Easter feast actually began some
times on the evening of the thirteenth day of the moon,
which was certainly earlier than our Lord ate the
Passover. Wilfrith further urged that by excluding
the twenty-first day of the moon, the British con
travened the Jewish Law. Thus the unfortunate
men were shown to agree neither with St. John nor
with St. Peter, neither with the Law nor with the
Gospel.

Colman fell back upon authorities of a more recent
date. " Did the holy Anatolius, so much commended
in Church history, act contrary to the Law and the
Gospel in teaching that Easter was to be celebrated
from the fourteenth to the twentieth ? Did their most
reverend Father Columba, and his successors, act
contrary to the Law and the Gospel, — men whose
holiness was attested by miracles and signs following ? "

Wilfrith denied that they agreed with Anatolius,

74 The Venerable Bede

whose cycle of nineteen years1 was unknown to the
British or neglected by them. As for their Columba
and his followers, of whom Colman asserted that their
faithfulness was attested by miracles, he might answer
in the words of the Scripture, that there were many
who would say in the day of judgment, " Lord, have
we not prophesied in thy name, and in thy name
cast out devils, and done many mighty works? " to
whom the Lord would reply, " I never knew you."
We may suppose that murmurs were heard at this
audacious and unseemly retort. At any rate, Wilfrith
qualified what he had said, but after a fashion which
resembled some retractions in a more modern assembly.
" Far be it from him to say so of their fathers," — not
because they did not deserve it, but — " because it was
more just to believe good than evil of persons one does
not know." And then he spoke of the pious intentions
with which no doubt in their rustic simplicity they
loved God. But he had another blow in store for
Colman and Columba. " What though that Columba
of theirs — nay, of ours, too, if he was a servant of
Christ/' he interposed, mindful, perhaps, of former
murmurs, but guarding himself against any positive
recognition of any virtue in Columba — " what though
that Columba of theirs was powerful in miracles and
was a holy man, was he to be preferred to the most
blessed prince of the Apostles, St. Peter, to whom the
Lord gave the keys of the kingdom of Heaven ? "

The king had now made up his mind, if indeed it
was only now that he had done so. He brought the
discussion to an end. "Is it true, Colman, that our

M«5«M4|«£JWI*&^^^».

1 After nineteen years the sun and moon hold nearly the same
relative position ; more nearly still after five nineteens, ninety-five
years.

Christianity in Northumbria 75

Lore] gave to Peter the keys of the kingdom of
He3^^^--^/lJj;,..is^true,_p king." " Can you show
that any such power was given to your Columba ? "
" None/' Colman answered. " Do you both agree that
these words were principally addressed to St. Peter,
and that the keys of Heaven were given to him by
the "Lord?" With unwonted oneness, Colman and

Then the king delivered his opinion. Stephen Eddi
says on the authority of Wilfrith that he delivered
it with a smile, subridens. The whole assembly
ratified it, both those who sat and those who stood —
a valuable hint perhaps that there was a popular
element in the synod. " I also say that he is the door
keeper. Him will I not contradict, lest when I come
to the gates of the kingdom of Heaven there be none
to open them, he who hath the keys being my enemy/'

The result of the synod was that the great majority
of the worsted party throughout the country went over
with the king. Colman, however, went back to the
Scots, being determined not to abandon his traditional
practice. There was also a further difficulty in the
way of an agreement, for he and his had a form of
tonsure different from that of the Italian party. The
Britons, with the Easterns, tonsured the front of the
head, in a crescent form. The Catholic party tonsured
the top of the head, leaving a ring of hair to repre
sent the crown of thorns. This they called the tonsure
of St. Peter, and being in want of a bad name to call
the other by, they called it the tonsure of Simon
Magus. From the time of the synod of Whit by,
however, these differences ceased in England, and
Christians were one in practice as in faith.

It is an important fact that Stephen Eddi, Wilfrith 's

76 The Venerable Bede

chaplain and intimate friend, writing Wilfrith's life
after the bishop had passed away, omits all mention of
the Petrine origin of the accepted rule, and makes his
master base his claim on the canon of the Council of
Nicaea. It would appear that Wilfrith had realised
the non-historical nature of his argument, and that
Eddi represents his mature opinion.

Bede has a very interesting chapter in connection
with the departure of Bishop Colman from North-
umbria. Colman took away with him from Lindisfarne
all the Scots he had gathered round him in the island
monastery and thirty of the English students there,
all alike trained in monastic discipline. He left a
certain number of brethren in his church. He went
first to Hii, that is, lona, and thence to a small island
to the west of Ireland, called by the Scots, that is, the
native Irish, Inisboufinde, a Gaelic Word meaning the
island of the white heifer ; the Gaelic of to-day would
differ only slightly from that form. Here he built a
monastery and placed in it all his monks of both
nations. This introduces a highly characteristic touch.
The two nations did not agree. The English monks
remained at the monastery throughout the year,
working in the summer to provide stores for the
winter season. The Irish monks wandered about
during the summer over districts known to them,
and on their return to the monastery they claimed
to live on the stores gathered by the English. Colman
felt he must put an end to the standing discussion,
and he bought a place on the mainland of Ireland
called Mageo. He left the Irish monks in the island
off the west coast and placed the English at Mageo,
where a succession of English monks was kept up
under excellent discipline and grew larger and larger

Christianity in Northumbria 77

till the time when Bede wrote. Mageo is now spelled as
pronounced, Mayo. It was known as Mayo of the
English.

Colman was succeeded in the bishopric of Lindis-
farne by Tuda, a bishop of Irish consecration, who had
stood on Wilf rith's side at Whitby. He was carried off
by the great plague in his first year, and was succeeded
by Eata, the English Abbat of Lindisfarne, one of the
twelve Northumbrian boys whom Aidan had received
to be trained at Lindisfarne. He was the Abbat of
Melrose also.

We have seen that Oswy had the assistance of his
son Alchfrith in his final and successful fight with the
pagan Penda, who had been such a scourge to Bernicia
and Deira. We have seen, too, how amicably they
worked together in a controversy affecting the Church
of the land as gravely as Penda 's action had affected
the State, although Alchfrith had come over to the new
view while his father had stood by the old. Alchfrith
was ever active in the cause of the Christian faith. He
was a main mover in the conversion of Peada. His
rule as sub-king of Deira promised good things. The
promise was not to be fulfilled. After the Synod of
Whitby, acting as king of Deira, he sent his friend
Wilfrith to Paris to be consecrated to the bishopric of
his capital city of York. Wilfrith spent an inordinate
time in Gaul, and Oswy, acting as over-lord, ap
pointed Ceadda (Chad) to York. From that time Bede
ceases to mention Alchfrith. -ZElfwine, another son of
Oswy, acts as sub-king with his brother Ecgfrith.
The same is true of Eddi, the chaplain, friend, and
biographer of Wilfrith. Exactly when he is describing
a scene in which Alchfrith would have revelled, when
Wilfrith was reciting at Ripon the ancient British

78 The Venerable Bede

sacred sites which he had sought out and had received
as gifts from " the kings/' Eddi tells us that the new
King Ecgfrith and his brother ^Ifwine — not his
brother Alchfrith — were the kings present. It would
have been only decent to say how much Alchirith
would have valued this recovery and the splendid
ceremony of the dedication of the great church at his
own much-loved Ripon. Something tragic must have
happened. It would seem that the father and son had
come to open quarrel, and Alchfrith had been slain.
Possibly there had been a recurrence of the cruel sort
of murder which had removed Oswin. But the proba
bility is that the Oswy party regarded Alchfrith as an
evil-doer beyond the pale even in those days. The
most famous of our national memorials, the great
cross-shaft at Bewcastle in Cumberland, bears the
name of Alchfrith, as son of Oswy, and the name of
Cyniburga his Mercian wife, and a prayer for his soul
with a reference to some serious sin. The inscriptions
on the shaft are numerous. They are in the early
Anglian runes and some of them are disputed, among
them the names of Wulfhere the king of the Mercians,
Alchfrith 's brother-in-law, and Cynesthwitha, his
wife's sister, and the date in the form of " the first
year of Ecgfrith the king of this realm." That is the
proper method of dating at that period. It gives the
date 670 A.D., which fits well into the story. It also
explains the erection of a noble monument, the finest
the nation possesses, in memory of one whose evil-
doing had been such that the contemporary historian,
Eddi, and the historian of the next generation, Bede,
could not write his name on their page after the
perpetration of the deed, whatever it was. The
" first year of Ecgfrith " meant that Oswy was dead

Christianity in Northumbria 79

and out of the way, and suggests that Ecgfrith did not
take the view of the enormity of Alchfrith's conduct
which the historians took. There may be something
in the fact, for such it seems to be, that if Alchfrith had
lived he would have succeeded Oswy as his oldest son,
older than Ecgfrith and much more prominent. A
representation of the side of the shaft which contains
the longest of the inscriptions and gives a representa
tion of Alchfrith himself is shown on Plate 4.1 The
figure above Alchfrith is Our Lord, with the inscrip
tion "X GESSUS KRISTTUS" above the head. Above
that again the Baptist, and above that the broken
socket from which the cross-head, also inscribed with
runes, was blown in the time of " Belted Will Howard,0
about 1615. On the runes at Ruthwell, see page 178.
Bede, writing of times only ten years before his
own birth, takes occasion to remark upon the extreme
frugality of the Scottish bishops who had ruled in
Northumbria — Aidan, Finan, and Colman. When
Colman and his party left Lindisfarne, those who
followed found no money, only cattle, and scarcely
house-room enough for the party which had left. The
king had never been accustomed to bring a large
retinue with him when he came to perform his devo
tions in the church : he brought five or six companions
at the outside, to spare the bishop expense, and if
they accepted food, they were satisfied with the plain
fare of the ecclesiastics. The result of so good an
example of self-denial and frugality on the part of the
bishop and his clergy was that the religious habit was
held in great veneration. All persons joyfully received
a monk, or one of the clergy, as God's servant. Those

1 On the whole subject of the remarkable monument, see The
Ancient Cross Shafts at Bewcastle and Ruthwell (Cambridge University
Press) , by Bishop G. F. Browne.

8o The Venerable Bede

who met such ran to them, bowing, and begged to be
signed with the hand or blessed with the mouth. On
Sundays the people flocked eagerly to church and
monastery, to hear the word of God. If a priest
came into a village, the inhabitants crowded round
him to hear the word of life. In those days, Bede
remarks, apparently with a sad glance to his own times,
in those days the clergy had no other aim than to
preach, to baptize, to visit the sick, to undertake the
cure of souls.

Such is the description which Bede gives of the
stat6 of Christianity in Northumbria, a very few years
before his birth. It remains only to record that even
so. late as this — and we have now come to the year
665 — the East Saxons relapsed once more into pagan
ism, believing that a pestilence which devastated their
country was due to the wrath of the gods they had
neglected and abjured. And the year after, Arch
bishop Theodore came to Canterbury, and with him
the knowledge and teaching power which prepared the
way for Bede and made such a phenomenon -possible.
The interval between Theodore's arrival and Bede's
commencement of his career as a student and writer
is covered by the life of St. Cuthbert, the details of
which will be found in Chapter VIII.

CHAPTER V

THE BRITISH CHRISTIANS

First introduction of Christianity into Britain — Tertullian's evidence
— Council of Aries — Orthodoxy of the Britons — Departure of the
Romans — The Britons and Augustine — Picts and Scots — Flight
of Roman bishops — The Welsh Church — Summary of conversion
of the several kingdoms.

HAVING now completed under Bede's guidance the
story of the conversion of both branches of the North
umbrian English to Christianity, it seems necessary
to say something of the British Christians, one branch
of whom, under their king Cad walla, have made a
tragic appearance on our pages.

We are naturally carried back to the very earliest
times in the known history of our land, which com
mences a few years before the birth of Jesus Christ.

School chronologies used to give A.D. 596 as the date
of the " introduction of Christianity into this island by
Augustine," but Christianity had been known and
practised here very long before Augustine's time.
There were British Christians, and in large numbers
too, four hundred years before Augustine came to
Christianize the Angles and Saxons.

No one can say, with any approach to certainty,
by whom Christianity was first brought to Britain.
The connection between Rome and this island was so
close in the latter years of St. Paul's life, that there
is much reason to suppose that the new religion
G 81

82 The Venerable Bede

became known here very early, probably by some
chance means. It has been said that St. Paul himself
visited Britain, in the interval between the end of the
Acts of the Apostles and his second captivity and
death. An ecclesiastical historian (Theodoret) asserted
that St. Paul carried out during that interval his
intention of visiting Spain,1 and that he proceeded
further to the islands scattered in the sea. Theodoret
wrote more than a hundred and fifty years before
Augustine's time. Clement of Rome, a contemporary
of St. Paul, says that the Apostle went to the extreme
limits of the West ; and we may remember that a
Roman poet described Britain as the " furthest island
of the West." The great historian of the early Church,
Eusebius, writing about the year 320, says decidedly
that some of the Apostles crossed the sea to the British
Isles.

The information we derive from secular sources as
to the means of communication between Britain and
Rome renders it highly probable that some attempt
would be made to Christianize the island in Apos
tolic times. Britain was then governed by Roman
viceroys, and was no doubt a frequent topic of con
versation among the Praetorian soldiers with whom
St. Paul lived for some time. The sons of British
princes were sent to Rome, both as hostages for the
good conduct of their fathers and for purposes of
education. Seneca, the brother of the Gallio of the
Acts, had large possessions in Britain. The poet
Martial, who went to Rome about the year of St.
Paul's death, sings the praises of a British matron
Claudia Rufina, wife of Pudens, and asserts that
his verses were sung in Britain. It is natural to
1 Romans xv. 24,

The British Christians 83

identify Martial's British Pudens and Claudia, living
in Rome, with St. Paul's Christian Pudens and Claudia,
also living in Rome (2 Tim. iv. 21) at the very time
when Martial went there. Pomponia Graecina, whose
husband commanded in Britain A.D. 43-52, was
accused at Rome A.D. 57 of " foreign superstition,"
and this has been held to mean Christianity. Other
links between early Britain and Christianity might be
added. On the face of it, the belief that Christianity
was introduced into Britain from Rome through Gaul
in the earliest years of the Christian Church is the
reverse of unreasonable. But it is probable that it
came in an informal way, from the talk of soldiers and
of traders. If any of the great apostolic missionaries
had been concerned in its introduction, the British
Christians must — one would suppose — have had some
tradition to that effect, and considering how closely
Britain was connected with Rome, the early Roman
writers must have referred to what would have been
almost a domestic fact.

The tradition that the Apostles divided the world
among themselves by lot has no historical authority.
According to that tradition, Britain fell to the lot of
Simon Zelotes, who thereupon came to the island
and introduced Christianity. A more persistent
tradition, though of later origin, assigns Joseph of
Arimathsea as the founder of the Church here, adding
that he was sent by Philip, who preached in the land
of the Franks. Joseph and his eleven companions
are said to have settled at Avalon, and the " Twelve
Hides " of Glastonbury are said to represent the
parcels of land which the then king gave to the twelve
missionaries. The English bishops claimed for their
Church precedence over some Churches at the Council

84 The Venerable Bede

of Basle (A.D. 1431) as having been founded by Joseph ;
and Queen Elizabeth and Archbishop Parker claimed
the same origin for the Church. We should not claim
it now.

Passing by these traditions and suppositions, it
is certain that Tertullian (about A.D. 200) described
the spread of Christianity in the island as so wide
that parts which the Roman armies could not reach
had been subdued to Christ, and that British bishops
were present at the Council of Aries, held in the
year 314. The Emperor Constantine the Great, and
also Athanasius, testified to the orthodoxy1 of the
British Church between A.D. 325 and A.D. 350. About
three-quarters of a century later, the great Pelagian
heresy, respecting man's dependence on the grace of
God, was commenced by a British Christian, Pelagius
being the Greek equivalent for Morgan.

The departure of the Romans, who carried off the
flower of the population in their armies, and the
arrival of the Saxons, effected the ruin of the Britons,
and all but obliterated the British Church. Accord
ing to Bede's account — and we have no account
which contradicts it — the Britons eventually deserved
their fate. They had found courage to drive off the
northern enemies who had invaded them as soon as
the Romans retired, though at first they had been so
terrified as to allow the Picts and Scots to drag them
off Severus's wall with hooks, and so make a way
over that useless barrier. But when the invaders had
been after a time sent out of the land again, the

1 Constantine named the Britons among the Churches which were
exemplary and orthodox in their time of keeping Easter. This is a
curious fact, considering the contempt which the orthodox poured
upon the British view later on. The orthodox had developed their
view and the British had not.

The British Christians 85

Britons became too prosperous. There was a re
markable plenty of the fruits of the earth, such as
had never been known before, and the people waxed
idle and wanton in consequence. Vice spread rapidly
among them. Bede's traditions informed him that
cruelty, the hatred of truth, and the love of lying,
were rampant ; so much so that any one who was a
little more inclined to the truth than his neighbours
was hated and destroyed as a " subverter of Britain."
And this was not confined to the laity. The clergy
indulged themselves in drunkenness, quarrelsome
ness, and so on. At length a pestilence came upon
them and slew the greater part of them, and then
their northern enemies attacked them again, and they
invited the Saxons to come to their aid. We know
what that led to. Bede gives none of the details
which we learn from other sources, and only tells in
general terms of the cruelty of the Saxons. The
priests were slain at the altar ; prelates and people
Were destroyed with fire and the sword ; many who
had fled to the mountains were seized, and murdered
in heaps ; others were more successful, and con
trived to find refuge in the mountainous parts on the
west of the island, Cornwall, Wales, and Cumber
land.1 There they kept up the succession of bishops
— indeed, the sees of St. David's, Lampeter, and
St. Asaph's were founded during this period of dis
tress — and when Augustine came to Christianize the
Saxons, one of the most important questions he had
to refer to Pope Gregory was, what was he to do
with the British bishops ?

It should have been quite possible for Augustine's

1 They formed practically three separate churches, those of
Cornwall, Wales, and Cumbria.

86 The Venerable Bede

mission and the British Church they found on their
arrival to differ on some points of practice,1 and yet
to agree in the main and be friendly disposed. But
unfortunately Augustine acted injudiciously in the
matter of his dealings with them. He treated them,
as we gather from the accounts of those who took his
side, as inferiors, and as having failed in their duty
towards the Saxon invaders, whom they had not
attempted to convert from heathenism.2 They should
have been treated with great consideration by the
Italians, as the survivors of an early and interesting
Christian Church which the Saxons had ruined ;
while the argument that they had not converted the
Saxons was not worth much, for they had been com
pelled to fly before the conquering invaders, who were
not likely to listen to the teaching of despised fugitives.

And it was not true that the Britons had made no
attempt to maintain their profession of Christianity
among the Saxons. They had stood their ground
manfully, — more manfully, indeed, than the Italian
mission did when the time of like trial came. Bishop
Theonas, probably of Lincoln, and Bishop Thadioc,
of York, had fled from their sees only a very few years
before Augustine's arrival.

Augustine had two interviews with the British
bishops. The first was held at the furthest point
westward which the protection of the King of Kent
made it safe for Augustine to reach. Geographical
and racial and political considerations point to the
spot where a great Roman road crosses the upper

1 The only points specified were the date of Easter in excep
tional years, and some detail — we do not quite know what — in the
ceremony of Baptism.

2 St. Patrick went from Roman Britain to convert Ireland, and
it'was a British bishop, Ninian, who converted the Southern Picts.

The British Christians 87

waters of the Thames, where the ancient town of
Cricklade now stands, conveniently near the great
British fortress of Malmesbury. This was the one
place, convenient to the Britons, where the Kentish
deputation and the British representatives stood on
ground safe for each. Political considerations weigh
heavily against the place which used to be regarded as
probable, namely Aust, near the English end of the
great ferry across the Severn.

The second interview was short and unsuccessful. The
native bishops1 had consulted an aged man as to the
course they should pursue with regard to Augustine's
overtures . He advised them, that if on their next visit
ing him he rose to meet them and greeted them kindly,
they should come to terms with him. If, on the other
hand, Augustine remained seated, they should at
once leave him, and break off communication with
him ; for if he treated them haughtily while they were
still independent, he could not be trusted to treat
them properly if they became in any sense his suffra
gans. Augustine did remain seated, and his visitors
took the advice they had received, and refused to
make any agreement with him. They parted with
high words, on Augustine's side at least, and one
result was, that the Canterbury mission was viewed
with jealousy and dislike by the native Christians.
To so great a length was this carried, that in the
time of Laurentius, Augustine's successor, a certain
Scotic prelate, Dagan by name, passing through
Canterbury, refused to eat in the same house with the
Italian Christians.

The mention of a Scotic prelate calls for some

1 The bishops had with them many very learned men, chiefly
from the monastery of Bangor. This was Bangor ys Coed, Bangor
by the wood, not the present Cathedral City of Bangor.

88 The Venerable Bede

explanation. As in Northumbria we have to deal
with two districts and two kingdoms with one race,
Deira and Bernicia of the Angles, so in the part of
the island north of Northumbria, we have to deal
with two districts and two kingdoms but with two
races, the Picts and the Scots. Instead of lying north
and south, as Bernicia and Deira, the Picts were to
the east and the Scots to the west. The Picts settled
to the east of the great central ridge, in Gaelic Drum,
which forms the backbone of the country we now
call Scotland. Inverness was their capital. The
Scots occupied the country to the west of the Drum,
Argyleshire and those parts. They were Irish people,
and the Irish were then called Scots. The name Scots
accompanied the Irish settlers to the west of the Drum,
and thence the land came to be called the land of the
Scots. After the union of the two races under Kenneth
MacAlpine, the whole of Caledonia came to be called
Scotland as it is now. The Picts were converted or, as
some say, reconverted to Christianity under Columba.
Scotic seems a better name than Scottish to indicate
the national Church which centred round lona.

Augustine and his party achieved but a very small
part of the work they had been sent to do. The little
kingdom of Kent, with its king at Canterbury and its
sub-king at Rochester, was their only permanent con
quest. They had, indeed, converted London, then
the capital of the East-Saxon kingdom, but their bishop
of London fled from his see when a popular tumult
was raised against him, and never returned. The
cause of the tumult is worth mentioning, as an indica
tion of the barbarous character of the times. Bishop
Mellitus of London, afterwards of Canterbury, was in
the act of administering the Holy Eucharist when the

The British Christians 89

sons of the king came in from hunting, tired and
hungry. They demanded some of the white bread
and of the wine, but Mellitus refused, informing them
that they must first be baptized. The king's sons in
their anger raised the tumult before which Mellitus
fled, and for many years there was no bishop of
London. In a similar manner Justus, the first Bishop
of Rochester, fled before a popular tumult. And
even Augustine's immediate successor, Laurentius,
was on the eve of flight when a so-called miracle <
stopped him. When Ethelbert, the first Christian
king of Kent, died, his son succeeded him, and in
accordance with the ancient practice of his race,
made arrangements to take as his wife the young
widow of the late king his father. Laurentius pro
tested against this, and the king was very angry with
him. The anti-Christian party fanned the flame, and
Laurentius determined to fly. The night before his
flight he slept for safety in a church near Canterbury,
and the next morning he appeared before the king
in great bodily distress, having — so he said — been
soundly scourged by St. Peter during the night. The
king was so much impressed by this unheard-of
punishment that he made friends with Laurentius,
perhaps fearing that his own turn would come next.
Paulinus, as we have seen already, fled before an
outburst of Saxon paganism. Thus the Italians
learned, in one place after another, what it was to
have to fly before the Saxons, as the British Chris
tians had done. — ~

In the Fourth Book of his Ecclesiastical History,
Bede records a similar case of a Christian bishop
abandoning his position, and flying to a safe place.
King Ecgfrith of Northumbria led an army against his

go The Venerable Bede

neighbours the Picts, contrary to the earnest advice
of Cuthbert, and the Picts by a feigned flight drew
him and his forces into the recesses of the hill country,
and slew them there. Taking heart from this success,
they recovered the lands which the English had taken
from them in former times. The British, too, following
their example, shook off the English yoke in the north
west. Thereupon the English Bishop Trumwine, who
had been appointed bishop over the Picts and was
settled at the monastery of Abercorn, fled with his
companions and took refuge at Whitby, where he spent
the rest of his life. Bede narrates this without any
remark which suggests a criticism of Trumwine's
conduct.

We may remark here that the scourging of Lau-
rentius, and its effect upon the king, was reproduced
afterwards in Northumbria. We have the story from
Stephen Eddi, Wilfrith's companion and biographer,
not from Bede, who wrote a little later. When Wilfrith
was deposed and cast into prison, the queen took
possession of his chrismary, which was well filled
with relics, and kept it in her room, or hung it in her
carriage when she made a journey. After a time,
the king and she in the course of a royal progress
through the cities and castles and towns of the king
dom, came to the monastery of Coldingham, over
which the late king's sister, ^Ebba, presided.1 They
rested there for a time, and during the night the queen
was seized by a demon and soundly flogged, like
Pilate's wife, Eddi says, so that she was found the
next morning in a dying state. -^Ebba went to tell
the king of the dreadful thing that had happened,

1 For the state of morals at Coldingham under its royal abbess,
see p. 287.

The British Christians 91

and gave him her mind freely on the subject, as Eddi
tells. He had deposed Wilfrith, had treated con
temptuously the orders from Rome, and finally had
shut up the holy bishop in prison : no wonder the
queen was flogged. He must release the bishop ; if
he could not replace him in the bishopric, he must
give him free leave to go where he would ; and the
queen must give him back the chrismary she had
taken from his neck. The king hearkened to the
abbess, Wilfrith was released, the relics were restored
to him, the queen was healed and was flogged no more.
The British Church continued to exist in Wales
for many centuries, and it exists there still. While
other British communities came to terms with the
Italian party in the Anglo-Saxon Church after the
synod of Whitby, A.D. 664, and agreed to abandon
the traditional rule for the determination of Easter,
and other details in which they were at variance with
the usages introduced by the Italian mission, the
bishops in Wales still held themselves independent of
the See of Canterbury. The earliest consecration of
a Welsh bishop by an English archbishop of which
we have evidence was in 1092. At that time Thomas,
Archbishop of York, was acting during the vacancy
caused by the death of Lanfranc. He consecrated
Herve le Breton to the see of Bangor in 1092. That
the connection with the English Church had become
close and real then may be gathered from the fact
that, when the see of Ely was created in 1109, Herv£
was selected as its first bishop. In 1107, Urban was
consecrated on August n as Bishop of Llandaff by
Anselm of Canterbury, Gerard of York, and six
bishops of the two provinces. In 1115, Bernard was
consecrated to St. David's on December 26 by Ralph

Q2 The Venerable Bede

of Canterbury; and in 1143 the remaining Welsh
diocese had its Bishop Gilbert consecrated at Lambeth
by Theobald of Canterbury.

The very ancient Church of the Welsh was only finally
brought into the English Church when the Welsh State
was absorbed at the end of the thirteenth century.
It still remained a church, within a church, though in
every sense an integral part of the National Church
of England as a whole. Whether it is so to remain, or
is to be cut out and utterly spoiled of its ancient
endowments, of which in these crowded times it has
made such noble use, may come to be decided by a
Parliament very different from that which is now, at
the end of 1917, managing our affairs. Our public
men are being taught now both that an end is coming
to factious mischief of that class, and that a people tried
as we are being tried are much more likely to create
than to destroy, when questions of national means for
the furtherance of national religion are to the fore.

It has been remarked in the course of this chapter
that Augustine's mission did but a small part of the
work they had come to do. The following summary
of the means by which the various English kingdoms
were converted will show how small a part of the island
they succeeded in christianizing.

Kent alone was Christianized permanently by
Augustine and his band.

Redwald, king of the East Angles, was baptized in
Kent, and thus owed his Christianity to Augustine's
mission. But he and his relapsed into heathenism,
and Sigebert, the succeeding king of the East Angles,
who is said to have been the first to establish schools
in those parts, having been educated in Gaul, procured
the reconversion of his kingdom by the missionary

The British Christians

labours of Felix, a Burgundian prelate, from whom
Felixstowe and probably Flixton derive their names.

The East Saxons were christianized by Augustine's
mission, but, as we have seen, they relapsed into
heathenism. The Italian bishop of London, Mellitus,
fled from his see and left it unoccupied for many
years, when Cedd, the brother of St. Chad, became
bishop of London, and Sigebert, the king of the East
Saxons — not the East Anglian Sigebert, — was baptized
by Finan, the Scotic successor of Aidan in North-
umbria. The East Saxons once more relapsed, and
their final conversion was at length accomplished by
Jaruman of Lichfield, of the Scotic succession of
bishops, A.D. 664.

Northumbria, as we have seen, was christianized
by Augustine's mission, relapsed, and was reconverted
by Aidan, of the Scotic Church.

The West Saxons were christianized by Birinus, an
Italian prelate who came over independently of the
Canterbury mission, and apparently after the demon
stration of the want of success of that mission. The
Pope advised him to seek consecration in Italy, and
not from Honorius, Augustine's successor, and he was
accordingly consecrated before leaving for England by
Asterius of Milan, at that time living at Genoa. The
Canterbury mission seems to have been treated as a
failure by Rome, for after Augustine's death no pall
was sent to his successors till the conversion of North
umbria.

The South Saxons, to preach to whom the Canter
bury mission had but to cross the boundary between
Kent and Sussex, were christianized by the North
umbrian Wilfrith, a keen Romanizer, but brought up
in the Scotic Church.

94 The Venerable Bede

The Middle Angles and Mercians received Chris
tianity from Northumbria, after Oswald had re-estab
lished it there by the aid of the Scotic Aidan.

Thus it would appear that the little kingdom of
Kent, with its bishoprics of Canterbury and Rochester,
was the only part of this island permanently converted
by Augustine and his band. By far the larger portion
of the island was christianized by means of the Scotic
Church with its centre at lona, whose knowledge of
Christianity could be traced through Ireland to its
nucleus in the British Church, one branch of which
Augustine so unfortunately offended.

Besides the time of keeping Easter, and the tonsure,
and some question of baptism, the British Church had
other usages which differed from those introduced by
Augustine, and by the sage advice of Pope Gregory,
Augustine retained some of them for use in England.
The lessons read from Scripture at Ordination were
apparently peculiar to the British Church. The
practice of anointing the hands of deacons, priests, and
bishops, at Ordination, was another peculiar rite, and
was retained in the Anglo-Saxon Church. This being
so, it is probable that other practices peculiar to the
Anglo-Saxon Church were in like manner retained
from the British use, though we have not the same
historical ground for the supposition : such were the
prayer at giving the stole to deacons, the delivering
the Gospels to deacons, the rite of investing priests with
the stole. A version of the Holy Scriptures which
differed from other known versions must have been in
use in the British Church, if early quotations from
Scripture are to be taken as made correctly and not
from memory.

Portions of buildings almost certainly used as

The British Christians

churches in British times still remain. These are found
in the Castle of Dover, at Richborough and Reculver,
probably at Lyminge in Kent, and at Brixworth in
Northamptonshire. Parts of the old British church
of St. Martin's, Canterbury, are incorporated in the
present church. Considerable remains of St. Pancras
Church exist at Canterbury. A few sepulchral monu
ments of the same early date have been discovered, and
a considerable number of pieces of pottery and other
remains bearing Christian symbols.

CHAPTER VI
BEDE'S WRITINGS. THE ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

Bede's Preface — His view of the advantage of history — King
Alfred's opinion — King Ceolwulf — " Volume," " book,"
" codex " — Sources of the History — Orosius — Range of the
History — The Romans — The walls in Britain from sea to sea —
The Picts and Scots — The Jutes, Saxons, and Angles — Hengist
and Horsa — The Cat Stane — The explanation of the Walls —
Pelagianism — Gildas — Bede's care for accuracy — The British
Isles in Bede's time — Five languages in the Isles — The Scots
from Ireland — The first arrival of the Picts of Caledonia.

BEDE'S greatest work was the Ecclesiastical History of
the English People. It appears that Bede had written
it at Jarrow, and the king of North umbria, Ceolwulf,
had heard of it and had requested Bede to let him
see it. Ceolwulf was of a studious disposition, and
eventually gave up the sovereignty and became a
monk. Bede tells in the first words of the Preface,
which he addressed to the king, that he had very
gladly acceded to the king's request. He had sent the
manuscript to Ceolwulf to be read and approved, and
after examination the king had returned it. Bede
then put any final touches that were needed, and
sent it once more to the king, to be transcribed, and
studied at his leisure by Ceolwulf.

It is worth while to form some idea of how long it
would take to carry out the work of transcribing the
whole of the five books of the Ecclesiastical History.
Experiment shows that with our modern fluid ink
and steel-nib pens, a very facile hand, pressing only

Bede's Writings

just hard enough on the paper to make a legible mark,
could form each letter of the History separately, in
smaller size than the early mediaeval lettering, with
out any pause, in six hundred hours, working very
nimbly the whole time. To make each letter thick and
black, with no fine strokes, would cost at least three
times as long. That is probably an underestimate.
To do the work with anything of the nature of a
pigment would of course take longer still. And it
must be borne in mind that most of it could only be
done in daylight.

As itjjvas now to be as we should say published,
Bede thojujpiFS^^ a statement

of the sources from which he had obtained this great
mass of information. JHe compliments the king on his
desjfej[oTc!royT:tie factsTffithe past, especially the past
of his own race. As this was the reason why King
Alfred selected Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the
English as one of the four books to be translated into
English for the men of his time, Bede's words pay a
prophetic compliment to King Alfred which he well
deserves. There is a double advantage in history,
^Bede. points out, and we can well imagine that this
passage clenched King Alfred's determination to have
the whole work put into English. If our history tells
us of the good actions of good men, the attentive
hearer— observe how Bede shows naturally that the
people of his time, speaking generally, could not read,
and that the copies of his book would be at most
very few — the attentive hearer would be moved to
imitate that which is good. On the other hand, if
the history tells evil things of evil people, the religious
and pious hearer or reader—here he comes to a class
some of whom could see and read the history in the

98 The Venerable Bede

monastery or the king's dwelling — the hearer or
reader would be moved to shun that which is noxious
and perverse, and do that which is good in the sight
of God. Therefore it no doubt was that King Ceolwulf
desired to have this History, for his own sake and for
the sake of those over whom he had been set by God
to reign.

Bede concluded his Preface with an appeal to the
reader not to impute to him any error which may be
discovered in the work, for he had, as the true law of
history is, laboured sincerely to collect simply all that
common report held, for the information of those that
should come after. And he ended with an earnest
appeal for the prayers of the readers for his manifold
infirmities both of mind and body.

The actual manuscript of the History Bede calls a
"volume." This properly means a roll. He generally
uses the word liber, the ordinary word for a book con
sisting of leaves, folia, stitched together, the word liber,
meaning " bark," or " rind," from the material used
in very early times. For a manuscript of the whole of
the Scriptures he uses the word codex (caiidex), liter
ally a flat piece of wood sawn into thin slices like leaves.
This gives exactly the idea of solid substance which
the vast codex hereinafter described as the Codex
Amiatinus gives to those who are fortunate enough to
behold it.

._From the beginning of the volume to the time
when the English nation received the faith of Christ,
he tells us that he had gathered his facts from the
writings of those who had gone before, the com
pendious History of Orosius playing a large part here.
From that date to his own time he had obtained his
information from those who best knew all that was

Bede's Writings 99

known in the several kingdoms. He applied in the
first place to Albinus, the Abbat of Canterbury, for
exact information respecting the history of Christianity
in that part of the island. Albinus had been a pupil
of Archbishop Theodore and of Abbat Hadrian, and
from them he had learned, in that accurate way in
which men with few or no books do learn what they
hear, the true account of what had been done in their
time. Theodore was the great consolidator of the
English Church, and thus the history of the most
important period of its existence was made known to
Bede almost at first hand. For the earlier history of
the Church in Kent, Albinus referred to the records in
his keeping, and he sent Nothelm, a priest of London,
to search the archives in Rome, where Nothelm found
some valuable letters of Gregory and other popes
which Bede incorporated in his History. Daniel,
bishop of the West Saxons (the south-west part of
the island, west of Sussex), sent him a written account
of the commencement of Christianity in that district,
as also in Sussex and the Isle of Wight. The monks
of Laestingau (Lastingham) gave him information
respecting the missionary labours of Cedd and his
brother Ceadda among the Mercians in the centre
of England. From the same source he learned the
details of the revival of Christianity in Essex, whose
capital was London, many years after it had been
expelled by paganism in Augustine's old age. Abbat
Esius was his authority for the eastern counties, where
also a good deal was learned from tradition. Bishop
Cunebert and other persons of good credit told him
the story of the province of Lindsey (Lincolnshire).
As to his own province, Northumbria, he had the
faithful testimony of innumerable persons of repute.

ioo The Venerable Bede

The Ecclesiastical History of the English gives us,
speaking generally, all that we know of the christian
izing of the Jutes and the Angles and the Saxons.
As we have seen, Stephen Eddi, a contemporary of
Bede, is our authority for much of the life and doings
of Wilfrith, with their bearing on the very interesting
and important question of the relations of the Church
of the English, as its founder Gregory calls it, to the
Roman Church, again to employ Gregory's own
phrase. And, as also we have seen, another con
temporary of Bede, Adamnan, tells us some very
interesting facts in connection with Oswald, king and
saint, from which we have traced an influence upon
ceremonies of our own time. But there the help of
other Church historians of the time begins and ends.
All else comes from Bede. For the commencement of
his History, down to the coming of Augustine (A.D. 596),
he was indebted to the writings of earlier historians.

An almost exact half of the First Book of the History
gives a summary of events in Britain down to the time
of the coming of Augustine. This summary is skil
fully compiled. It begins with Julius Caesar and his
operations in Britain, and tells of Claudius and his
successes here, and Vespasian whom Claudius sent
after his return to Rome. It tells the story of Lucius, a
king of the Britons, asking Eleutherus, the Bishop of
Rome, to send Christian teachers here, A.D. 156.
Bede's next statement gives us an account of the
building of " the vallum of Severus," A.D. 189. Next
comes the persecution by Diocletian, A.D. 286, and the
charming account of the martyrdom of St. Alban.
Constantine's call from Britain to the empire of Rome,
and the Arian heresy, come next. Gratian, Arcadius,
and Honorius, lead us up to the time of the Pelagian

Bede's Writings

101

heresy. With the year 383 we are brought to the first
mention of the inroads of the Picts and Scots, whom he
describes as vehemently cruel, and the appeal to Rome
for a return of the Roman soldiery who had left the
island defenceless. Bede mentions incidentally that
there were in his time abundant evidences of their
long rule in Britain, nearly 470 years from Julius
Caesar, cities, temples, bridges, paved roads, besides the
Wall of Severus. A legion was sent, with the advice
that the Britons should themselves build another wall,
from the Forth to the Clyde, which they did, using
turf in its construction because they had no one
capable of so great a work as building it of stone.
Abundant remains of it were to be seen in Bede's time.
It started two miles from Abercorn and ran to Alcluith,
that is, Dumbarton. Its starting-place on the Forth
is called by Bede in its Pictish form Peanfahel, in its
English form Penneltun, presumably meaning the
head of the wall, like Benwell on the Wall of Hadrian.
If, as seems probable, Kinnell on the Forth represents
the Head of the Wall, we have an apt illustration of the
use of k in place of p or b, which makes (Malcolm)
' Canmore ' the same word as ' Pen(msen)maur/
and turns ' quatuor ' into ' petwar ' and ' quinque '
into ' pump.'

After this, Bede tells, yet another legion was sent,
which built a great stone wall from sea to sea, not far
from " the rampart of Severus." This wall was eight
feet thick and twelve feet high, as anyone could see
in Bede's time. It was built at public and private
expense, the Britons giving help in the work. The
legion built towers on the sea coast, south of the wall,
where their ships were, because it was feared the
barbarians would break through there. Then they

•

IO2 The Venerable Bede

left, after giving all manner of good advice about
courage and resistance, and never came back again.
The Picts and Scots, having learned that the Romans
had said a final farewell, naturally broke through
afresh and perpetrated great cruelties.

In 446 the wretchej^maJDS ^^the. Britons sent
to tne Roman commander ^Etius an appeal known as
the groans of the Britons. " The barbarians drive us
into the sea, the sea drives us back to the barbarians ;
either we are slain or we drown." ^Etius had his hands
more than full with the intolerable ravages of the Huns
under Attila. The Britons recovered their courage
and things went well again ; they went from success
to luxury, from luxury to crime of every worst kind.
Their northern enemies overran Britain again, and at
length the Britons under Vortigern invited the Saxons
from beyond the seas to come over and protect them.
The result was fatal to the Britons. Three of the most
powerful races of Germany came over to Britain,
Jutes, Saxons, and Angles, and by degrees drove the
Britons out of most parts of the land to seek shelter
in the mountainous parts of the West. They made a
good fight for it here and there. One of the two
original leaders, Horsa, was killed in a battle in east
Kent, where a monument bearing his name was still in
existence in Bede's time. This fact of a monument —
no doubt of stone — bearing Horsa 's name, is direct
evidence of a family or tribal custom, and is therefore
in favour — so far as it goes — of the explanation usually
given to the very remarkable inscription on the great
boulder stone at Kirkliston, called the Cat Stane, that
is, the Battle Stone. The inscription is : — " In oc
tvmvlo iacit Vetta f(ilius) Victi." A very close
examination with eye and finger and lens seems to

Bedes Writings 103

make it clear that if any further letters were meant to,
be added the intention was never carried out. Bede
tells us that Hengist and Horsa were sons of Victigilsus,
who was son of Vitta and grandson of Vecta. It is
a most remarkable coincidence of recurrent family
names if this stone and Horsa 's inscriptional stone
have no sort of kinship. It is quite true that we do not
know of the formula In hoc tumulo, or the word
jacet being used for pagan burials in this island, but
they are customary in the British inscriptions and no
doubt came from Romano-British times. It is easy
to conceive an alliance of an early Saxon leader with
the enfeebled Britons against the hated Picts, and the
British burial of their ally in the large enclosed
cemetery in which the Cat Stane stands. Bede
informs us that the Saxon visitors did repel the Picts.
Bede's account of tbe three walls across the land
is ingenioug fr"*; ^ery ^r from
Jar ;jEm J^o^QOifim^riiJie
had evidently seen the third, the wall built of stacked

follows in

Jelling. oi the sad tinrip-a nf thfi priin nft Bpiain, Tiftft not

a well-informed guide. Indeed, with all our greater
knowledge of the facts of the Roman occupation, the
explanation of the times and purpose of the walls has
only come in the lifetime of very many of us. The
turf wall from Forth to Clyde was rjuflt. under Anto-
ninus~~Pius, about A.D. 140, by his representative
Lollius Urbicus. It was built to relieve the pressure
on the great wall which Hadrian had built from Tyne
to Solway, and to protect the people north of Hadrian's
Wall against the barbarians still further north. Ante*
ninus was the adopted heir and the successor of
Hadrian ; he was thus a wall-builder by adoption and

IO4 The Venerable Bede

continuous policy. Hadrian's Wall was built about
A.D. 121. It is still astonishingly complete in many
parts, the greatest monument we possess. Bede, as we
have seen, attributes this enormous piece of work to
the very latest of the Roman forces here, and describes
it as not far from the vallum of Severus. There is no
evidence that Severus made this vallum. Bede's whole
system of dates here is wrong. The Emperor Severus
was here in A.D. 208, when he repaired Hadrian's Wall,
and two years later the turf wall of Antoninus, dying
at York in 211.

This vallum has been the subject of much dis
cussion. It lies south of the great stone wall, very close
to it in places, in some places three-quarters of a mile
away. It is not continuous. It is not carried through
to the coast. The fosse has earthworks on each side
of it, north and south. This curious fact has been used
to explain the existence of the vallum.1 The principal
quarries for the stone of the wall are naturally on the
south side of the wall. The trench was dug and the
vallum was made a rampart against hostile attack
from the north while the stone was being excavated
and the troops were resting at night. When all was
finished, the earthworks were made on the south side
of the trench, so that the protectors of the wall against
the north would have a parallel protection against
rebellion or treachery on their rear.

The Saxons soon joined forces with the Picts and
ravaged the whole land of the Britons, until at last
Ambrosius, a sole survivor of the Romans, and of
the royal race, put heart into the Britons and won the
great victory of Mount Badon, A.D. 476. Then Bede

1 Pev lineam valli, by George Neilson, Glasgow. Wm. Hodge and
Son, 1891.

Bede's Writings

105

goes back half a century and tells of the Pelagian
heresy breaking out, invented by a British Morgan,
the equivalent of the Greek Pelagius (sea-born). And
Germanus, Bishop of Auxerre, and Lupus, of Troyes,
came over to combat the heresy, which they did with
great success. After careful individual teaching they
called a great popular assembly, men, wives, and
children, and held a disputation, the people acting as
spectator and judge ; in the end they shouted down
the heretics and scarce kept their hands off them.
This was about A.D. 429.

The Britons are said by their own historian Gildas,
Bede writes, to have gone from bad to worse. He is
throughout this part of his History quoting the book
on The Ruin of Britain, which Gildas wrote about
the year 544. All rules of truth and justice were so
completely subverted that the memory of the exist
ence of such virtues had disappeared, except among
the very few. Ambrosius is the only Briton named
by Gildas of whom he speaks well. The most un
mentionable evil which Gildas in his tearful history
relates is this, — the Britons never preached the faith
of^Christ tojhe Saxonjand Anglian inhabitants of the
land, and so in the goodness of God Gregory was
moved by divine inspiration to send Augustine to
preach the word to the English.

Gildas did not live to see this. The most recent
investigations make him die at the age of ninety-four
in the year 570, one of six children of a Briton of royal
blood, five of whom, including Gildas, became Welsh
Saints. Their father was a great-nephew of the hero
Ambrosius, the Welsh Emrys, whose fortress of Dinas
Emrys is near Beddgelert.

st mention of Pope Gregorj^JBede^

io6 The Venerable Bede

History follows the fortunes of the Angles and Saxons
to his own time, and is our one continuous authority
for their doings.

Some idea of the care with which Bede compiled
his books may be gathered from the account he has
left of the composition of his Life of St. Cuthbert,
Bishop of Lindisfarne. He informs his readers in a
preface that he had not presumed to write any of the
deeds of so great a man without minute investigation.
He obtained his information from those who had
known the beginning, the middle, and the end of
Cuthbert 's life, and to establish the truth of what he
wrote, he gave the names of those from whom he
learned various parts of the story. When the life
was written, he still kept it back from publication in
order that he might submit portions of it to the
criticism of one of the brethren of Jarrow, Herefrid
the priest, and of others who had known Cuthbert
intimately. The book, amended in accordance with
the suggestions of these competent persons, was sent
to the monks of Lindisfarne, at whose request it had
been undertaken by Bede. During two days it was
read in the presence of the elder brethren there, Bede
himself being present. They found that not any one
part of it needed alteration, and they decided by
common consent that it was to be accepted and read
without hesitation, and to be copied for publication.
The Bishop of Lindisfarne, and apparently some of the
brethren, suggested in conversation certain additions,
which Bede describes as equally important with what
he had already written. He reminded them, however,
that the work as it stood had been very carefully
considered and finished, and he did not think it con
venient and right to insert new matter.

Bede's Writings

107

The opening chapter of the Ecclesiastical History
is full of interest, since it contains a description of
England and Ireland as they were in Bede's time.
Britain excelled in grain and in trees, and in pasture
for cattle. In some parts of the island vines grew.
Land fowl and water fowl abounded. The rivers were
full of fish, especially the greatest plenty of salmon
and eels. It is well to give the most honourable inter
pretation we lawfully can to Bede's name, isicius, for
this most plentiful of British fishes. Salmon is the
most probable of the possible meanings. Ducange's
synonyms would suggest pike and shad as competitors.
The Anglo-Saxon evidence given by Dr. Plummer is
strongly in favour of salmon. Those of us who have
fished salmon with Gaelic gilles may say the same
for the Gaelic evidence. The fish isicius was famous
in Latin culinary art, as giving its name to a favourite
dish, the recipe for which is as follows : cook the fish,
lay it in vinegar or wine, and sprinkle over it a powder
of aromatic spices. Isidore, from whom Bede learned
so much, though we have no means of knowing
whether he studied Isidore's Origins as a cookery-book,
tells us in his rather laboured way that the fish isocen
was the original material of this dish and gave to it
its name, but any kind of fish could be used for making
isicium.

Seals, he proceeds, and porpoises, were very fre
quently taken, and whales too. Pearl-mussels were
found, containing pearls of different colours, ruby,
purple, violet, and green, besides the ordinary white
pearl. There was a superabundance of shellfish
(cockles) from which scarlet dye was made of so
excellent a character that neither the sun nor rain
made it fade, and it became more and more brilliant

io8 The Venerable Bede

with age. There were saline springs and hot springs,
and baths were arranged at these places for both sexes.
Bede accounts for the hot springs by a dictum of St.
Basil, that water grows hot even to scalding when
running over certain metals. The last word of modern
science on this subject is that radium is the creator of
the internal heat of large masses of rock, whether you
tunnel in horizontally or go vertically downwards
toward the fabled fires of the centre of the world.
Bede no doubt had in mind the waters of Bath, where
radium has now been found. There were mines of
copper, iron, lead, and silver, with plenty of jet,
bright and sparkling, of which Bede remarks that
when rubbed it holds fast anything to which it is
applied as amber does. He adds that when heated it
drives away serpents. Probably it does, when it is hot
enough.

Bede speaks of Britain as having been at one time
more rich in great towns than it was in his time. It
had formerly, he says, twenty-eight noble cities, besides
innumerable castles, all furnished with strong walls,
towers, gates, and locks. We cannot learn what these
twenty-eight cities were, but it is only reasonable to
suppose that they were the twenty-eight episcopal sees
of which Bede tells, seven in the province of York,
seven in the province of Caerleon, and fourteen in the
province of London.

In the north-country home of Bede the nights were
short in summer. He writes as if this were equally
the case in all parts of the island. The reason,
he says, is that Britain lies nearly under the North
Pole ; and, therefore, the sun has not a long night
journey under the earth to reach the Eastern
parts again. The nights were sometimes so light

Bede's Writings

109

that at midnight men could not say whether the
evening twilight was still abiding or the morning
twilight coming on.

The climate of Ireland far surpassed that of Eng
land. Snow scarcely ever lay there three days. The
winter was so mild that the Irish never made hay in
the summer for winter provender, or built stables for
their horses. There were no snakes. Attempts were
frequently made to take snakes over from Britain, but
as soon as Irish air reached the ship, they died. Indeed
so specific a remedy against snakes was anything
Irish, that a drink made from the scrapings of the
leaves of books that had been in Ireland cured their
bite. Ireland was rich in milk and honey ; there were
plenty of vines ; fish and fowl abounded ; and the
island was remarkable for deer and goats.

Five languages prevailed in Britain in Bede's time.
Divine truth was studied in the language of the
English, the Britons, the Scots, the Picts, and the
Latins, the last being made common to all by the
special study of the Scriptures, not that it was still
the spoken language of any race in the island. The
Britons at first had the island to themselves, Bede tells
us. After a time, some Picts from Scythia,1 sailing in
long ships, were blown to the coast of Ireland, then
occupied by the Scots. The Scots assured the strangers
that they could find them no room in Ireland, but, they
said, they could give them some excellent advice.
There was an island to the north-east which they often
saw in clear weather. They had better go and take
possession, and if any one opposed them, the Scots
would help them. It was an easy way of getting rid
of troublesome visitors, and it succeeded. The Picts

1 Probably a distant part of Scandinavia.

no The Venerable Bede

in time made good their hold upon North Britain.
Nothing is said of any previous inhabitants, and as
the next thing the Picts wanted was wives, there were
perhaps no inhabitants. The Scots, whose advice had
proved so excellent, were requested to provide the
Picts with permanent advisers in the shape of wives.
They consented, but only on a condition which strikes
us as curious, namely, that if ever there was any
doubt about the succession to the throne, they should
take a female line of the royal family in preference to
a male line. Bede says that this custom prevailed
among the Picts in his time. A similar rule exists in
some savage nations in our own day, the reason
with them being, that the child of a woman of royal
race must have some royal blood in its veins, whoever
the father may be.

This curious rule of royal descent among the Picts
has naturally worked out curiously in special cases.
Eanfrith, for instance, the brother of Oswald and
Oswy, fled to the Picts when Oswald fled to the Scots
(Irish) of lona. He married a Pictish princess and had
a son Talorg who was called MacAinfrit after him.
When Oswy's son Ecgfrith very foolishly and with
fatal results invaded the territory of the Picts in
Forfarshire, the Pictish king who defeated and slew
him was his cousin on the father's side, through the
Pictish marriage of Eanfrith. In another case the
rule led to the union of the Picts and Scots under one
sovereign. Kenneth, known as Mac Alpine, succeeded
by paternal descent to the kingship of the Scots on the
west side of North Britain, and succeeded also to the
kingship of the Picts on the east side of North Britain
by maternal descent from a Pictish princess. He
became thus the first king of a combined Caledonia,

Bede's Writings

which came to be called Scotland, and he transferred
the seat of government to Scone.

That, however, is anticipating events which came
long after Bede had passed away. He completed the
story of the occupation of North Britain by invaders
with an account of the passing over to the west coast
of a large party of Scots, that is, Irishmen, from
Ireland*. He describes them as Dalreudins. We know
them as Dalriads. It was they for whom, as we have
seen in the story of Oswald, Columba erected a king
dom independent of the kingship of the bulk of the
Dalriads who had remained in Hibernia, thus un
consciously paving the way to a kingdom of all
Scotland.

CHAPTER VII

THE LIVES OF THE ABBATS

Benedict Biscop — The tombs of the Apostles — Alchfrith — Visit to
Rome — Theodore of Tarsus — Biscop at Canterbury — Further
visits to Rome — King Ecgfrith — Foundation of Wearmouth —
Visit to Gaul — Wilfrith's dedication of the church at Ripon —
Recovery of British Holy Sites — Alchfrith again — Pictures of
saints — The Vision of Drythelm — The Revelation of St. Peter —
Foundation of Jarrow — Dedication stone — Privileges from the
Pope — Pictures at Jarrow — Death scene of Biscop — Bede's age
at that time — Abbat Easterwine — Abbat Ceolfrith — The Codex
Amiatinus — Alcuin's recollections of Wearmouth — A pretty
saying of Bede.

BEING for the most part concerned with the past
history of the Church, the earlier books of the
Ecclesiastical History do not enter very much into
the personal details we should have found so interest
ing. . But the later books give us much of this detail,
and there are some among the writings of Bede which
from the nature of the subject throw still more light
upon the manners of the time, chiefly as regards the
ecclesiastical life. These are especially the Life of
St. Cuthbert and the Lives of the earliest Abbats of
Wearmouth and Jarrow. We have already seen that
Bede gives in one of his homilies some details1 of the
life of Benedict Biscop, the founder and first abbat of
these two monasteries. In the Life he gives fuller
information. Benedict was of a noble family of North-
umbria, of the Angles, as Bede puts it, and worthy of

1 Page 6.

112

The Lives of the Abbats 113

the society of Angels, a pun copied from Pope Gregory.
He was a minister of King Oswy, and had received
from him a grant of land suitable to his station,
according to the custom of those times. We see
another reference to this custom in Bede's letter to
Archbishop Ecgbert, where he laments that the kings
had been so profuse in their grants for the establish
ment of monasteries, that they had no lands left to
give to the sons of nobles, who either were compelled to
leave their country, or led idle and dissolute lives at
home.

At the early age of twenty-five, Biscop resigned his
office, apparently a military command, and with it the
donative he had held. In obedience to a desire he
had long felt, he went to Rome to visit the tombs
of the apostles. Those were, no doubt, the tombs
of St. Peter and St. Paul, of which Eusebius says,
that St. Peter's tomb was to be seen on the Vatican,
St. Paul's on the Ostian Way. He then returned
to England and passed some time in meditating
upon all that he had seen, especially upon the charms
of the ecclesiastical life ; and we are told that he
urged his views upon such persons as he could per
suade to hear him. The son of King Oswy, Alchfrith,
became anxious to visit the holy places in Rome, and
arranged with Biscop that they should go together.
Oswy, however, made Alchfrith stay at home, but
Biscop carried out the intended journey and remained
in Rome for some months. He then went to the monks
in the island of Lerins, and received the tonsure. After
spending two years there, he was " overcome by love of
the Apostle St. Peter," and returned to Rome, the
arrival of a trading vessel enabling him to leave the
island.

H4 The Venerable Bede

He reached Rome at a fortunate crisis. The kings
of Kent and Northumbria had requested1 Pope Vitalian
to send them a suitable man as Archbishop of Canter
bury, the archbishop elect having died of the plague
in Rome. Vitalian selected, after more than one
failure, Theodore of Tarsus in Cilicia, a man of great
learning, skilled in the Latin and Greek languages.
Abbat Hadrian, another man of much learning, an
African, who had refused the Pope's offer of the vacant
archbishopric, was given to Theodore as a counsellor
and assistant, and Vitalian added Biscop to the party.
These three selections show that Vitalian possessed
great insight into character, and knew what was good
for England under the conditions then existing.
Theodore was an Eastern, not a Western, and he was
not even in full orders. He had to wait long, though he
was nearer seventy than sixty years old, till the marks
of his Eastern tonsure had disappeared, and the hair
had grown across the front of the head, so as to allow of
the Western tonsure, to represent the crown of thorns.
Notwithstanding his advanced age, his minor orders,
and his Eastern training, Vitalian determined that
Theodore was the right man. And throughout an
extraordinarily active life as archbishop for more than
twenty years, Theodore much more than justified the
choice. Before his time, England was a missionary
station ; he left it an established Church.

Of Biscop we are told that Vitalian saw he Would
become a man of wisdom, industry, piety, and noble
ness. He therefore commanded him to give up the idea
of living far from his country in the service of Christ.
He set before him, as Bede says, the prospect of a
higher usefulness. He appointed him to convey to

1 So Vitalian seems to have understood them.

The Lives of the Abbots

England that teacher of truth whom the country so
earnestly desired, and to act as his interpreter and guide
both on the way and after their arrival in Kent. Biscop
cheerfully agreed to this course, and going to Canter
bury with Theodore, he became abbat of the monas
tery there, and taught till Hadrian came to take his
place as abbat and head of the educational staff. In
this useful work he spent two years. The candle thus
lighted by Theodore and Biscop burned with more and
more brilliance in England for nearly a hundred and
fifty years, till the dark times of the Danish invasions.

Again, for a third time, he went to Rome. His
object was to purchase books of sacred literature and
relics of martyrs. Besides those which he bought,
he received some as presents from friends. At Vienne,
also, purchases had been made for him, and he came
home by way of that town to add them to his store.
His first intention was to visit the King of Wessex
(the district to the west of Sussex), who had been a
useful friend to him ; but hearing that this king was
dead, he came to Northumbria, where Ecgfrith had
been king for three years. His enthusiasm for the
monastic life, and the wonders he had to show in
manuscripts and relics, so wrought upon Ecgfrith that
he made him a large grant of land out of his own
property and bade him build a monastery. This was
commenced at the mouth of the river Wear, on the
north side of the river, in the year 674 after Christ.

A year after the foundation of Monk Wearmouth,
the indefatigable Biscop crossed the seas to Gaul to
look for masons able to build a church of stone after
the Roman style, for which he had a great love. He
brought the workmen back with him, and so much
energy was given to the task that within a year from

n6 The Venerable Bede

the foundations being laid the roof was on and masses
were celebrated. When the church was nearly finished,
he sent messengers to Gaul, being too busy, no doubt,
in superintending the building to find time to go
himself, and hired workers in glass to fill the windows
of the church, cloisters, and dining-rooms. Bede
informs us that the art of making glass was up to that
time unknown in Britain, and adds that the Gallic
workmen remained long enough to teach the English
people their handicraft, which was well fitted for many
ecclesiastical uses.

We have no detailed account of the consecration
of the abbey church. But it will not be out of place
to give here the description of Wilfrith 's consecration
of his church at Ripon, as we find it in Eddi's con
temporary Life of Wilfrith. The church was built
of polished stone, from the foundations in the ground
up to the roof ; it was ornamented with numerous
pillars and porches ; within, it was adorned with
silver and gold and purple. When all was ready,
Wilfrith invited the most Christian kings Ecgfrith and
££lfwine, the abbats, prefects, lieutenants, and all
persons of position. After Solomon's example, they
consecrated the church and the prayers of the people
uttered therein ; they dedicated the altar with its
bases, put on it a purple cloth inwoven with gold,
and the people communicated. Then Wilfrith stood
before the altar with his face to the people, and read
out in a clear voice a list of the lands which the kings
had given for their souls, gifts ratified that day by the
consent and subscription of the bishops and all the
chief men ; he read also a list of the various holy
places, now restored, which the British clergy had
deserted when they fled before the sword of the

The Lives of the Abbats 117

Angles, — " before the sword of our race," as Wilfrith
had to put it. The gifts of the kings were large,
including lands in various places whose names were
recited. When this address was ended, the kings and
people commenced a great feast, which lasted through
three days and three nights. Wilfrith added to the
possessions of the church a marvel of beauty unheard
of before those times, namely, a manuscript of the Four
Gospels written on parchment richly illuminated, and
enclosed in cases of pure gold adorned with gems. Bede
says, as we have seen, that the art of making glass was
unknown in England till the time when Biscop intro
duced workmen into Northumbria ; but Wilfrith had
before that time used glass abundantly at Ripon, and
had also glazed the windows of the dilapidated church
he found at York.

We have seen that Wilfrith, in performing the conse
cration of the great church at Ripon, part of the crypt
of which lies below the floor of the nave of the present
cathedral church, recited among the possessions of
the abbey the holy places which had been consecrated
to the service of God in the flourishing times of the
British Church. It is impossible not to regret that
Wilfrith left no record, so far as we know, of the
dedications of these sites. The antiquarian instinct was
overpowered by the strong party feeling which could
not recognise the British saints to whom presumably
the ruined churches and the desecrated sleeping-places
of the Britons were dedicated. In Cornwall, Wales,
Scotland, Ireland, we have the old dedications, not on
record only but in daily use. England is a sad blank
in this respect.

It will have been noticed also that Eddi says the
kings Ecgfrith and ^Blfwine, two brothers, had given

n8 The Venerable Bede

lands. This looks like independent royal action on the
part of .^Elfwine as king of Deira, and on the part of
Ecgfrith as king of Bernicia. More probably &li wine's
gifts of lands in Deira was ratified by the signature of
the over-king of the whole of Deira and Bernicia.

It should be noted, too, that Eddi avoids reference
to the fact that Ecgfrith 's younger brother is now
joint king in place of the oldest of the three brothers,
Alchfrith. This omission is the more remarkable
because of the firm friendship which had bound
together Wilfrith and Alchfrith, especially in Church
matters. It is one of the many unexpressed suggestions
on the part of the two historians, Eddi and Bede, that
some tragedy of an unusual character had put an end
to King Alchfrith 's career of usefulness in State and
Church. We can imagine how greatly he would have
enjoyed the splendid ceremony at Ripon Minster.

A silence on the part of Bede even more striking
than this, in regard to matters of extreme importance
in connection with this same Wilfrith, is described at
the end of Chapter IX.

Biscop further obtained from Gaul everything that
was necessary for the service of the church, such as
vestments and sacred vessels, because these could not
be procured in England. Some of the things which he
thought necessary for the full perfection of his church
and monastery were not to be found even in Gaul, and
in order to supply these he set out a fourth time for
Rome, as soon as he had thoroughly established the
rules of the monastery and had brought everything
into working order. On this occasion he collected many
pictures of sacred subjects, and secured the services of
the arch-chanter of St. Peter's in Rome, John, the
Abbat of St. Martin's, who not only taught the monks

The Lives of the Abbats

119

how to sing the services in the Roman fashion, but
left at Weannouth considerable manuscript informa
tion as to the ceremonies proper to various festivals.
We have a most interesting list of the pictures. First,
there were likenesses of the Virgin Mary and the twelve
Apostles, to be placed on boards fixed across the nave
from side to side. Next came pictures of scenes
from ecclesiastical history, for the south wall of the
nave ; and then pictures from the Revelation of
St. John, for the north wall. Thus, as Bede says,
every one who entered the church, whether he could
read or not, could see, wherever he turned his eyes,
the countenances of Christ and His saints ; he could
dwell upon the blessings of the Incarnation ; he
could examine his heart closely, having before his
eyes the perils of the last judgment. This last use
of the pictures will suggest to the recollection of
readers the grotesque frescoes seen in so many village
churches in these days of the removal of whitewash,
the huge gaping dragon's mouth full of flames, repre
senting the place of torment, with busy demons hurling
in the souls of men.

A matter of extraordinary interest must be men
tioned here. We have seen that Bede tells of a series
of pictures of scenes from the Revelation of St. John.
In the vision of the other world vouchsafed to Dry-
•thelm, an account of which is now to be given, it will
be seen that there are details which have no connection
with anything related or suggested in the Revelation
of St. John. In recent investigations in Egypt, some
portions of the apocryphal Revelation of St. Peter
have been found among collections of papyri of very
early date. The Revelation of Peter, lost through all
these centuries, is found to be the source of the most

I2O The Venerable Bede

remarkable parts of the vision, Bede's Latin version
agreeing word for word with the Greek original of the
papyri. Drythelm was a Northumbrian, from the
district then called Cunningham, and he became a
monk at Melrose, where King Aldfrith used to visit
him. It was there that he told at very full length the
marvellous series of scenes in his vision, related in
the twelfth chapter of the Fifth Book of the Ecclesi
astical History. It is reasonable to suppose that
Biscop's pictures at Monk Wearmouth were the
inspiration of the vision.

Drythelm had apparently died in the middle of the
night. He came to himself in the morning. He saw
during the period of his trance the places of torment and
of happiness. There were degrees of torment. First a
broad valley full of men's souls ; one side was piercingly
cold, the other was a flaming and unquenchable fire.
The unhappy souls, unable to endure the cutting
cold, leaped into the flames ; and then, unable to
endure the flames, leaped back into the snow and
hail. Thus the valley was filled with human souls
flying always in restless agony from one side to the
other. It is a striking picture. The second place of
torment was a vast pit, from which from time to time
great clouds of dusky flame sprang up, blazing for a
while, and then falling back into the abyss. These
clouds of flame were full of souls, carried up like
sparks, and sinking again with the flames. Had Bede
lived now in that same country of coal and iron, he
could have seen, whenever he looked forth at night,
apt illustrations of this part of the vision. As the
dead man stood there, the air became horrid with
demoniac laughter and shrieks of tortured souls.
Demons were seen dragging men's souls to the pit of

The Lives of the Abbats 121

fire and plunging in with them, descending deeper and
deeper, till the jeers of the torturers could no longer
be distinguished from the shrieks of the victims.
Among these victims were a tonsured priest, a lay
man, and a woman ; and the words seem to imply
that they were persons whom the entranced man
recognised. The remainder of the vision will be found
in the chapter on Bede's Homilies at page 248.

It may be worth while to add that the vision
produced a lasting impression on Drythelm. Bede
had the story from an intimate friend of the man,
who told him further that all his life Drythelm
lived in the full and clear consciousness of what he
had seen. His home being near a river, he was wont
to walk into the water up to his waist, and at
times up to his neck, and to stand there saying his
prayers, now and again dipping completely under
water. When he came out, he never changed or dried
his clothes. In the winter he would stand in the river
while the pieces of broken ice dashed against him, and
when one called to him from the bank, "I wonder,
brother Drythelm, that you can endure such cold ! " he
would reply, " I, at least, have seen severer cold than
this." And when one said to him, " I wonder how you
can endure such austere fasting ! " he would reply, " I,
at least, have seen severer austerity than this."

Biscop obtained for his monastery a letter of
privileges from the Pope. This secured the institution
from interference from without. Bede expressly says
that this letter was obtained not only with the consent
of the king but by his earnest wish. And we find by a
further reference at a later period of Bede's History,
that the validity of the letter depended upon its con
firmation by English authority. He relates that in the

122 The Venerable Bede

time of Abbat Ceolfrith, when further property had
been acquired for the monastery of Jarrow, a letter of
privileges was obtained from Pope Sergius similar
to that which Pope Agatho had granted to Biscop.
This, he adds, was brought back to Britain, and
being exhibited before a synod, was confirmed by the
signatures of the bishops present and of King Aldfrith,
as the former letter was confirmed by the king and
bishops of the time.

King Ecgfrith was much struck by the zeal and
piety of Biscop, whom Bede frequently calls Vener
able, little supposing that by that title he would
himself be known in after ages throughout the Chris
tian world. The king would appear, also, to have
formed a high opinion of the advantages of the
monastic life. He made an additional grant of a
considerable amount of land, and stipulated that
another monastery should be built on it, as a sister
establishment to the monastery of Wearmouth. Within
a year the new monastery was built, and Biscop sent
as its head his most strenuous assistant and com
panion in travel, Ceolfrith, with a party of seventeen
monks. He then appointed Easterwine to act as abbat
of Wearmouth, and himself set out on a fifth journey
to Rome, about A.D. 685. As usual, he came back loaded
with all manner of valuable ecclesiastical possessions.
There were large numbers of manuscripts and of
holy pictures. Some of the latter, representing scenes
in our Lord's life, he hung round a church he had
built at Wearmouth in honour of the Virgin Mary.
Others were employed for adorning the church and
monastery at Jarrow. Bede describes these last as
arranged with the utmost skill, so as to show the
harmony of the Old and New Testament. Thus two

The Lives of the Abbots 123

pictures were hung side by side, one showing Isaac
bearing the wood for the sacrifice of himself, the
other showing Our Lord bearing His cross. Another
pair of pictures in juxtaposition showed the serpent
lifted up by Moses in the wilderness, and the Son
of Man lifted up on the cross.

It is singularly fortunate that we have the dedica
tion stone of this church. It is in two separate pieces,
as though they had been let into the wall of the church
on either side of some central object. The sundial at
Kirkdale Church near Lastingham1 has been let into
the wall above the south door, and on either side of it
is an inscription which has for us exceeding — indeed
unique — interest, recording that that church was rebuilt
in the days of Edward the king and Tosti the earl,
that is, immediately before the Norman Conquest.
As there is a sundial on the Bewcastle Cross, erected
in the first year of King Ecgfrith, there may have
been a sundial between the two parts of the dedication
stone at Jarrow, dated in the fifteenth year of the
same King Ecgfrith. The inscription, see Plate 6,
runs thus : —

" Dedicatio basilicae
sci Pauli VIII Kl Mai
anno XV Ecfridi reg
Ceolfridi abb eiusdem
q' eccles do auctore
conditoris anno IIII."

' The dedication of the basilica2 of St. Paul on the
ninth of the Calends of May in the fifteenth year of King
Ecfrid and the fourth year of Ceolfrid the Abbat and
under God the builder of the same church."

1 See Plate 5. 8 See page 170.

124 The Venerable Bede

The date is 685, Ecgfrith's first year being 670. As
he was killed in an aggressive invasion of the Picts of
Forfar in the year 685, he did not live long after the
completion of the church which was built on the site
given by him. It will be noticed that Benedict
Biscop's name is not mentioned. He was in Rome
at the time, only returning after the disaster to
Ecgfrith, which ended the supremacy of Northumbria
over the Picts.

Biscop knew how to make the most of his oppor
tunities when on his travels. We find him bringing
from Rome two royal robes or palls, made entirely of
silk and worked in an incomparable manner. These
he sold to the king and his councillors for an important
piece of land on the south side of the mouth of the
Wear. The price paid may remind us that, four
hundred years before, a Roman emperor had refused
his wife a silk dress. He also brought a manuscript
collection of geographical writings, of beautiful work
manship, which he sold to the same king, Aldfrith of
Northumbria, for a considerably larger piece of land
on the river Fresca.

A life of such activity and usefulness was closed
by a peaceful death. Bede's account of the illness
and death is written very much in the spirit in which
his own disciple came in time to write the story of
his death in its turn. Biscop was stricken with palsy,
which for three years crept from one part of his body
to another, beginning at the lower extremities. His
colleague in the Abbey of Wearmouth, Easterwine's
successor Sigfrid, was taken ill about the same time
with a wasting disease. When neither of the abbats
could visit the other, both having lost the use of their
limbs, the monks carried Sigfrid to Benedict and laid

The Lives of the Abbats 125

him so that the two loving friends could give each
other the kiss of peace. Bede says that they were so
weak that, though their heads were laid on the same
pillow, they could not of themselves turn so that their
lips should meet, and the brethren had to guide their
heads before they could perform the parting act of
Christian love. It is a subject worthy of the skill
and imagination of the best of the painters of old,
and there are painters even now who might do justice
to it.

There were three points on which the dying abbat
laid great stress in his practical injunctions to his
monks. One was the strict maintenance of the Rule
which he had given them. He assured them that its
several regulations were not devised by himself or of
his own will. He had seen in his large experience
on the Continent seventeen monasteries whose rules
he preferred to all others, and from these seventeen
he had copied the statutes which he imposed upon his
twin monasteries. Another point was the magnificent
library he had collected. This library, most abundant
in all that was necessary for instruction in sacred
matters, he would have kept entire ; no neglect
was to be allowed, no division or dispersion. The
last point was, the succession to the abbacy ; and
here we have a suggestive hint of the prevalence of
an evil of which Bede wrote strongly to Bishop
Ecgbert some years later. He urged the brethren not
to elect any one as abbat by reason of his birth. He
would have no claims of next of kin. He was par
ticularly anxious that they should not elect his own
brother ; he would rather his monastery became a
wilderness than have this man to succeed him, for
they all knew that he did not walk in the way of

126 The Venerable Bede

truth. Apparently he feared that a claim something
like that of hereditary succession might be set up.
That the fear was no visionary one may be seen from
later ecclesiastical history, when benefices of various
kinds, even bishoprics, were handed down from father
to son ; and the evils arising from this practice had no
doubt much to do with the enforcement of celibacy
among the clergy. In Biscop's own time the here
ditary descent of an abbey was no unknown thing ;
thus the Abbess of Wetadun persuaded Bishop John
of Hexham to cure her daughter after the flesh, whom
she designed to make abbess after her. Not only
would Biscop not have a hereditary abbat, he would
not have an abbat brought in from another monastery.
It may be remembered that the Abbat of Westminster
who surrendered his abbey to Henry VIII was the
first abbat for 300 years who had not been a monk
of Westminster. The duty of the brethren was, in
accordance with the Rule of Abbat Benedict the Great,
in accordance with their own statutes, to inquire care
fully who of themselves was best fitted for the post,
and, after due election, to have him confirmed as abbat
by the bishop's benediction. This rule had, of course,
much to recommend it. But in monastic as in collegiate
life there comes a time when the election of a head from
outside is necessary to the well-being of the institution.
When Benedict grew worse he was unable to sleep
at night, and his solace was to have the Book of Job
and other parts of Scripture read to him. He became
so weak that he could not rise to pray, and could not
depend upon himself to say the words of the daily
Psalms. He therefore summoned to his cell a party
of the brothers at each of the canonical hours, and
dividing them into two choirs, made them sing the

The Lives of the A bbats 127

appointed psalms antiphonally, joining in himself
whenever he felt his voice strong enough. On the
night of his death he received the Eucharistic Sacra
ment as a viaticum. He died while a portion of the
Gospel was being read by a priest. It was remarked
as an omen of good, that the brethren who were
engaged in the church in singing the Psalter through
while he was in extremis, had reached Psalm 82 (our
83), headed " Lord, who is like unto Thee ? " a sure
token, as they believed, that all the enemies of his soul
were overcome by the power of the Lord.

At the time of Biscop's death, Bede was about
sixteen years old. He had been an inmate of the
monastery at Wearmouth for one year, and had spent
eight years at Jarrow. Thus he writes of what he had
himself seen and known, in his account of Benedict
and of the three or four abbats who succeeded him.
His account of Easterwine, abbat in Biscop's life
time, is especially vivid, and we may suppose that
the charming combination of physical strength and
kindly courtesy, for which Easterwine was distinguished,
took firm hold of the ready sympathy and memory
of a growing boy. Here is a delightful picture of
him as Bede draws him, when he entered upon the
joint abbacy at the early age of thirty-one, to be
carried off by a pestilence after five years of gentle
and powerful rule. He was a young man of great
strength and sweet speech ; high-spirited and generous ;
pleasant to look upon. Humility was a marked feature
in his character. He was cousin on the father's side
to Abbat Benedict, and had been a chief officer of
the king, but Bede remarks that he never from his first
entrance as a monk expected that any deference should
be paid him, or that the abbat should show him any

128 The Venerable Bede

favour as a near relative. He found pleasure in thresh
ing and winnowing, milking the ewes and kine, work
ing in the bakehouse, the garden, and the kitchen.
When he was promoted to the abbacy, he made it his
principle to remain unchanged in his manner to the
brethren. When necessity arose, he inflicted the
punishments laid down in the Rule under which they
lived ; but he held that prevention was better than
punishment, and endeavoured to make the brethren
feel unwilling to bring a cloud of pain over his open
countenance. When he went out to look after the
business of the monastery, if he came upon any of
the brethren at work, he would join them for a time,
taking the plough-tail or the smith's hammer. He
had the same food as the brethren, and in the same
room, which Bede notes apparently as an unusual
arrangement. He slept in the common dormitory,
where he had slept when he was only " priest Easter-
wine," and even when death was known to be coming
on, he retained his pallet almost to the last, being
removed to a more private room only five days before
his death. From this room he came out but once
alive, and on that occasion he sat in the open air and
called up all the brethren one by one, and gave them
the kiss of peace, they the while weeping bitterly over
the impending loss of such a friend and ruler.

Ceolfrith has been mentioned as the first abbat
of Jarrow, the abbat who took Bede with him from
Wearmouth. A year before Biscop's death, Ceolfrith
had been associated with him in the joint abbacy of
the two monasteries, and he ruled as sole abbat after
that event for twenty-seven years. During this long
tenure of office, Bede grew to man's estate, was
ordained deacon and priest, studied and wrote. He

The Lives of the Abbats 129

was about forty-three when Ceolfrith died, and it is
probable that if the story of his refusing the abbacy
is correct, the occasion was the vacancy caused by
Ceolfrith's resignation. Bede's portrait of this abbat's
work is drawn from life. He built many oratories in
the monastery. He largely increased the sacred vessels
and vestments. He doubled the libraries of the two
monasteries, — little fear of his needing Benedict's
warning against dissipating the books. He gave to
each of the monasteries a complete Bible of the
new translation, as Bede describes Jerome's work,
Benedict having brought from Rome one of the old
translation. He found money to add to the land
which Benedict had received in exchange for the book
of geography mentioned above, and for the money
and land he obtained an estate more conveniently
situated, half the size of the original endowment of
Jarrow, at the village of Sambuce, perhaps Sandoc.
He also gave to Jarrow a considerable estate at Dalton.
He showed incomparable skill in saying prayers and
in chanting ; great energy in punishing those who
deserved it, with moderation towards weaker vessels ;
and an abstinence unusual among rulers — so Bede says
— in eating and drinking and in the manner of dress.

After twenty-seven or twenty-eight years spent thus,
he found that his charge had greatly increased, and his
powers of administration, weakened by age, were no
longer equal to the task. He therefore announced
his resignation of the abbacy. Among the reasons
for his resignation, Bede mentions one which did
Ceolfrith great honour, and might be adopted by some
in the present day whose means are sufficient to enable
them to resign their offices to more vigorous hands.
He felt that he was now unfitted, owing to the infirmi-

130 The Venerable Bede

ties of old age, for impressing upon the brethren the
due forms of spiritual exercise by precept and by
example. Within three days of the announcement of
his intention to resign, he set out from the monastery,
in spite of the tears and supplications of the brethren,
who entreated him not to deprive them of his presence
and rule. Nothing could stop him. Two motives urged
him to immediate departure. One was the fear lest
he should die before he could reach Rome, — Rome
which he had visited in his youth with Abbat Bene
dict, Rome where he wished to end his life. He
feared lest any of his friends or of the nobles of the
country who held him in much honour, should delay
his departure if the knowledge of his intention became
generally known. The other motive was a curious one.
He was afraid that some one might give him money,
which he would have no opportunity of repaying
without considerable loss of time and interference
with his journey. For, Bede explains, whenever any
one gave him anything or did him any favour, he
invariably made a return fully equivalent, either at
once or after a due interval.

The leave-taking was very solemn. Bede describes
it in a manner which leaves little or no doubt that he
was himself an actor in the scene. At first dawn on
one of the early days of June, when the season for
travel had fairly commenced, mass was sung in the
church of the blessed Virgin Mary and in the church
of St. Peter. Those present communicated. Then
all the brethren of Wearmouth and some of those
from Jarrow assembled in St. Peter's. Ceolfrith lighted
the incense for the last time in the accustomed place,
said a prayer at the altar, and gave the blessing, stand
ing on the steps of the altar with the censer in his

The Lives of the Abbats 131

hands. Litanies were sung, interrupted by the sobs
of the brethren. Then they passed out into the
oratory of St. Laurence, which was in the dormitory
opposite the door of the church. There Ceolfrith said
his last farewell. He charged them to let brotherly
love continue, and to correct the faults of the erring.
He forgave all against whom he had aught, and prayed
pardon of all who had aught against him, if he had
ever administered his office with undue severity. The
whole company went down to the banks of the Wear,
where the ferryboat lay. They knelt and received
from him the kiss of peace. He prayed, and entered
the boat with the companions of his journey. The
deacons of the church went with him in the boat,
bearing lighted tapers and the golden cross. Arrived
at the other side of the Wear, he adored the cross ;
then mounted his horse and rode away. It is evident
that he was making for some port of departure further
south. The anonymous Life of Ceolfrith, which tells
us some very interesting personal details, tells us that
he was to take ship in the Humber, that the whole
month from June 4 to July 4 was occupied by the
land journey from the Wear to the Humber and the
delay before starting for the sea, and that before his
ship reached its appointed port it was driven to shore
in three different provinces, in all of which he was
most honourably received. He left in the two monas
teries not less than six hundred brethren.

Ceolfrith 's fear lest he should die before he could
reach Rome was justified by the event. Some delay
was caused by their having to wait for a ship on the
English coast. During this interval the new abbat,
Huetbert, announced to him in person his election to
the vacant office, which Ceolfrith approved and Bishop

132 The Venerable Bede

Acca of Hexham confirmed. He reached Langres,
only to die there, on the 25th of September, 716,
and he was buried in the monastery of the twin
martyrs, one mile from the town on the south' side.
He was in his seventy-fifth year when he died, and
though so advanced in age, and suffering from illness,
he persisted to the last in maintaining the rigour of
the Rule which he had so long administered. Every
day of his hundred and fourteen days' journey from
Wearmouth to Langres he observed the canonical
hours of prayer, and twice daily he chanted the
Psalter. Even when he was so ill that he could not
ride on horseback, but was carried in a litter, he sang
mass every morning. Indeed there were only four
days on which he did not sing mass — one when he
was on the seas, and three when he was dying.

Here the remark must be made, how fortunate it is
that we have still in existence remains connected with
the persons of our history. In some senses the personal
relics of St. Cuthbert,to be described in a later chapter,
are the most remarkable. But on a larger view none
of the cases is so striking, or of such importance, as
the personal relic of Abbat Ceolfrith now in the great
Library of Florence.

Ceolfrith took with him on his last journey towards
Rome one of the pandects, manuscripts of the whole
Bible, Old and New Testaments, of which we know
that there were three at Wearmouth. This was to be
his choice gift to the Pope. When he died, nothing
was heard of the pandect, so far as Bede's record goes.
It passed out of history for 1170 years, to appear again
in 1886. But the anonymous Life again comes in with
personal information. Some of the brethren returned
to Northumbria to report the fact and details of the

The Lives of the Abbats 133

death. Others completed the journey to Rome with
the gifts for the Pope, among which was the pandect
of Jerome's translation from the Hebrew and the
Greek.

There is in the Laurenziana at Florence a huge
manuscript of the whole Bible, so large and heavy
that it is drawn out of its safe on a shelf and thus
lodged on a stretcher to be carried by two men. It
had an inscription telling of its being taken as a gift
to Rome by Peter, an abbat from the distant lands of
the Lombards, who desired to lay his body in Rome,
Petrus Langobardorum extremis de finibus abbas. It
had been long in a monastery on the Monte Amiata,
and thence was known as Codex Amiatinus. It is
of the highest possible value in testing the various
readings of the earliest Latin Bibles.

A little more than thirty years ago, de Rossi found
that with the exception of the second letter, the e in
Petrus, the whole of the Petrus Langobardorum was
written over an erasure. The erasure had left here
and there small fragments of the original letters, the
second letter e being not erased. De Rossi read the
words as Ceolfridus Britonum ; but this present writer
pointed out that on various grounds that was scarcely
admissible, and Ceolfridus Anglorum must have
been the words. De Rossi examined the text again,
and found the top of the / of Anglorum. Thus the
reading was settled as Ceolfridus Anglorum extremis
de finibus abbas, and the vast and priceless Codex
Amiatinus proved to be that one of the Wearmouth
pandects which Ceolfrith took with him when he
went to Rome to die.1 Once more the anonymous

1 On the remains of another of these pandects see my Boniface of
Cvediton, pp. 136-9, and Recollections of a Bishop, p. 185.

134 The Venerable Bede

Life steps in. It gives us in a debased form six lines
of the inscription which it tells was written at the
beginning : —

" Corpus ad eximii merits venerabile Petri
Dedicat ecclesiae quern caput alta fides.
Ceolfridus Anglorum extimis de finibus abbas,"
etc.

The anonymous Life has a statement which perhaps
gives us a hint as to the use of the codex as a gift by
this Peter, a Lombard abbat. The anonymous author
tells us that when Ceolfrith at last landed in Gaul he
was specially honoured by the king, Helwric. This
king gave him letters to the authorities of all parts of
his kingdom, directing them to pass him on free from
charge and expense. Besides this, the king gave him
letters to Liutprand, the king of the Lombards. No
doubt the Wearmouth monks carried this letter to the
Lombard king, and it is conceivable that in this way
the name of the Lombard abbat who had passed them
on and not improbably accompanied them to Rome
was inserted at that date in place of the unfamiliar
name of Ceolfrith, an abbat who did not make personal
appearance there. Indeed it may have been a direct
forgery, perpetrated then. No such king of the Gauls
as Helwric is known. The sole nominal king at the
time, the last but one of the Merovingians fading away,
was Chilperic, and that presumably was Helwric.
There is so complete an absence of any reference to the
use of Anglian runes by Bede or any of the Church
historians then, though beyond doubt the runes were
in use then, that it is probably too far-fetched to
suggest that the rune for w is scarcely distinguishable
from the ordinary letter p, and a scribe might possibly

The Lives of the Abbats 135

transliterate Chilperic or Hilperic as Helwric. In any
case it is very interesting to find a king of the effete
Merovingian line acting thus apparently in full and
royal sovereignty towards a brother king two years
after the death of Pepin of Heristal, when the Mayors
of the Palace were supreme in actual power. Pepin had
been so much assisted by Anglo-Saxon missionaries,
and Charles Martel who succeeded him so completely
continued the friendly relations with our ancestors,
that it is most probable that the king was advised by
the Mayor how to act in the matter, as a Prime
Minister might advise King George.

Here Bede's history of the Abbats of Wearmouth
and Jarrow ends. He had come down to the time of
his own abbat, Huetbert, whose life was not as yet
a matter for history. In an imperfect list of saints
honoured in the North of England, written in the
tenth century and to be seen in the library of Corpus
Christi College in Cambridge, Benedict, Easterwine,
and Ceolfrith all appear as saints, their days being
respectively the I2th of January, the yth of March,
and the 25th of September.

We have a very pleasant account of the tone and
atmosphere of the Wearmouth monks from Alcuin,
written long after he had said his final farewell to
Northumbria (Ep. 274, Mon. Ale.). It is specially
worthy of record here because of its delightful personal
story of Bede. Writing of the time when Alcuin was
still in office at the School of York, he says : —

" The place of your dwelling was very dear to me,
though the call to foreign travel took me far away
from you, in body, not in love. When I was with you,
everything that I saw gave me great pleasure, both
your buildings and your manner of life. It is your

136 The Venerable Bede

praise in the sight of men that alike in garb and in all
the discipline of the monastic life you abide firmly
by the institution of your fathers, who were dear to
God and honoured by men. It is certain that the
founders of your community frequently visit the places
of your abode. They rejoice with you when they
find you living rightly and keeping their statutes, and
they cease not to intercede for such with the pious
judge. Nay, there is no doubt that the angels, too,
visit the holy places. It is reported that our master
and your patron the blessed Bede said, ' I know that
the angels visit the canonical hours and the assemblies
of the brethren. What if they do not find me in the
congregation ? Would not they have to say, Where
is Beda ? Why has he not come with his brethren
to the appointed prayers ? '

Both in the Commentaries and in the Homilies Bede
speaks of his conviction that the angels are present at
the worship of God on earth.

It may be added that the Abbey of Wearmouth
suffered severely in the Danish wars, and was destroyed
in 867. It was again destroyed by fire in an inroad
made by Malcolm, king of Scotland, in 1070. Jarrow
is said to have been destroyed by the Danes in 793,
and again by the forces of William of Normandy in
1069, when they devastated the country between
Humber and Tyne. Walcher, Bishop of Durham,
restored both monasteries, and in 1083 Bishop William
of Carileph transferred the monks of Wearmouth and
Jarrow to Durham, and made them the chapter of the
cathedral church.

CHAPTER VIII

THE LIFE OF ST. CUTHBERT

Stories of miracle — Many of these stories not miraculous — Melrose
and Boisil — Alchfrith and Ripon — Prior of Melrose — Abbat of
Lindisfarne — His rule there — Retirement to a small island —
Bishop of Lindisfarne — At Carlisle — His death and burial — Relics
of St. Cuthbert — Coffin — Pectoral cross — Portable altar — Robes.

BEDE'S Life of St. Cuthbert was undertaken at the
request of the bishop and monks of Lindisfarne. We
have already seen the extreme care which he took to
make it accurate. The story is full of miracles from
beginning to end, and each miracle comes down to
us with the solemn attestation of those who knew
Cuthbert well, and had lived under his personal rule.
Thus there can be no doubt that in that age the
frequent occurrence of miracles was accepted as an
incontestable fact. Bede's own feeling in the matter
seems to have been that it was, perhaps, as well to
give his authority for any miraculous story he related ;
but, beyond that, there is no appearance of an ex
pectation on his part that his accounts of miracles
would be disbelieved. Even when he describes in a
circumstantial manner the steps he took to secure
perfect accuracy in his Life of St. Cuthbert, he does
not in the most remote way suggest that without such
explanations of his method of procedure his account
might be doubted because of the miracles it contained.
And in his Ecclesiastical History, the latter part of

138 The Venerable Bede

which contains many miraculous stories, there is no
sign to indicate that a miracle was less likely to be
'believed than the fact that two comets appeared in
the year 729. But as we proceed with the life of
St. Cuthbert, we shall see that the great mass of what
is called miracle is susceptible of a simpler explana
tion, even where it is not to be accounted for by the
natural tendency to exaggerate the influence of one
who showed forth so many of the signs of an apostle as
Cuthbert did.

Cuthbert died in the year 687. Bede was there
fore thirteen or fourteen years old at the time, and
Jarrow is no great distance from Lindisfarne. There
is no reason why Bede may not have seen Cuthbert.
Supposing the Life of St. Cuthbert to have been one of
his later works, it must at least have been written
within thirty-five or forty years of Cuthbert 's death.
But in the Ecclesiastical History he says that many
years had elapsed since he wrote the Life, and, indeed,
the later part of the Ecclesiastical History contains a
sort of supplement to it. Monks in Lindisfarne who
had reached the age of sixty had spent their boyhood
and early manhood under Cuthbert 's influence. Priests
of that age had been ordained by him. In this, as in
some other cases, Bede had talked with men on or for
whom miracles had been wrought, and had heard their
account of the miracles ; indeed, he sometimes gives
the account in the actual words of the narrator. It is
difficult to reject the details of such testimony on the
ground that we know much more than our fathers, and
are sure that they were ignorant and superstitious.
It is unfair to charge superstition, in its accepted sense,
against men who were ignorant of physical explanations
which are familiar to us. Such men were men of pious

The Life of St. Cuthbert

139

faith, and as such deserve our respect. Not only that,
they set an example which we might do well to follow
in some cases, even in this age of vastly extended
natural explanation. If we are to reject all these
stories wholesale, so far as their miraculous part is
concerned, we must do it on the ground that natural
phenomena and remarkable coincidences were inter
preted and exaggerated into miracles, in the case of
men so remarkable for their piety that the people
looked upon them as specially favoured by God, and
endued with power over the elements and over diseases.
Such exaggeration would, of course, lead sometimes to
false claims and pure invention on the part of un
scrupulous or overwrought men.

A large proportion of the miraculous stories told
by Bede have nothing necessarily miraculous about
them. Take, for instance, the first miracle recorded
in Cuthbert 's life. The future saint was afflicted
suddenly with a serious lameness when he was a mere
boy. One of his knees became very painful, and an
angry tumour formed near it. The muscles of the
thigh were contracted, and the leg hung bent and
useless. One day, when he had been carried out by
his attendants and left to lie a while out of doors in
the fresh air, a man, clad in white, rode up on a
magnificent horse. Seeing that Cuthbert did not
rise, he asked if he had no respect to show for such a
visitor. Cuthbert replied that he would most gladly
rise and pay him reverence if he were not tied by the
leg to his couch. The stranger dismounted and
examined the knee. He prescribed what we may
call a bread-poultice. " Boil some wheat-flour in
milk, lay it on warm, and you will be cured." Cuth
bert followed this excellent advice, and in a few days

140 The Venerable Bede

the leg was healed. Then he perceived that his
visitor was an angel, sent by Him who sent Raphael
to restore the eyesight to Tobit. Curiously enough,
Bede's only doubt in the matter is whether all readers
will believe that an angel rode on horseback. To
satisfy the scruples of such, he refers them to the
passage in the Maccabees where angels came on
horseback to the aid of Judas Maccabeus. The remedy
recommended by the stranger was not quite what the
Saxon leeches would have employed. Their treatment
for the swelling of knees and for shanks was this : —
Take the root symphoniace (Saxon henbelle, or hen
bane) and pound it, lay it thereto, and it will take away
the swelling. For the racking pain in the joint their
prescription was — Take the netherward part of marche,
and honey, and the smede of wheaten meal, and the
bowels of a wig (ear-wig) ; rub them together, and lay
on. Wheat flour was thus common to two of the
prescriptions.

Or, to take the miracle which comes next in order
in Cuthbert's life. The story is worth extracting, if
it were only for the curious and interesting light it
throws upon the transition from paganism to Chris
tianity, which was by no means complete in Cuthbert's
time. The monks of Tynemouth — they had been
changed into nuns before Bede wrote — had gone to
the Tyne in five vessels to fetch wood for the use
of the monastery. As they floated down the river
again, a violent wind came from the west and blew
them beyond their landing-place, in spite of the
assistance rendered by boats which the remaining
monks launched when they saw that the ships were
unmanageable. Human help being of no avail, and
the five vessels being blown out so far to sea that

The Life of St. Cuthbert

141

they looked like birds riding on the waves, the monks
issued forth from the monastery, and grouping
themselves on the extreme point of the rocks prayed
to God for the safety of their brethren. There seemed
to be none to hearken, for the storm continued to
rage with unabated fury. Then the common people,
who were collected in crowds to see what would
happen to the monks, began to revile. The monks,
they said, deserved it, for abandoning the ordinary
manner of life and conforming to new and unheard-of
practices. Cuthbert, a layman and little more than
a mere lad, was among the crowd, on the opposite
side of the river from that on which the monks were
praying. He reproached the people and asked them
whether it would not be better to pray for the safety
of the monks than to revile them in their misfortune.
The people indignantly refused to pray for them. " No
one should pray for them ! Might God spare none of
them ! They had taken away from men the ancient
worship, and how the new worship was to be carried
out no one knew." Then Cuthbert knelt down among
them and prayed with his face to the ground. The
wind fell at once, and the ships were carried by the
waters to the landing-place they had missed. The
rustics blushed for their unbelief and became firm
Christians. It is evident that this miracle, which Bede
had from one of the rustics present, whose truthful
ness was unimpeachable, may have been nothing
beyond the ordinary course of nature. The monks
would start at first with a flowing tide to drift up the
estuary to the place where the wood was to be pro
cured. Having spent some time in loading their
ships, they would drop down again with the falling
tide. The wind and the tide hurried them past their

142 The Venerable Bede

landing-place. The monks prayed in vain till the
tide turned, for there was no adequate reason for
disturbing the course of nature. It is well known how
calm an estuary becomes on a sudden, under certain
circumstances of wind, &c., when the " first of flood "
is imminent. We have only to suppose that Cuth-
bert's prayer coincided in time with this calm and
with the turn of the tide, and then without any
miracle we can imagine the five ships drifting quietly
up with the tide to their landing-place. In fact, the
whole scene, without the monks and the prayers, has
often been enacted in tidal waters.

Another miraculous event in Cuthbert's life may
be mentioned, as coming under the same category of
coincidence, not miracle. When he was still a young
man, and not as yet a member of any brotherhood,
he set forth on horseback alone. About nine or ten
o'clock in the morning he halted at a village which
lay on his road, to rest himself and to give his horse
some food. A pious woman begged him to let her
prepare dinner for him ; but he refused, on the
ground that it was a fast day, being Friday. Bede
remarks that on Friday the faithful fasted till three
o'clock in the afternoon. It was customary to end
fasts other than the severe fasts of Lent at three in the
afternoon, on the ground that at that hour, the ninth,
the Agony on the Cross ended in the Death. An
English Council, held a dozen years after the death of
Bede, directed that the Rogation Fasts be kept till
three o'clock. The woman assured him that he would
find no house on his way, and he must fast all day and
all night if he did not take something then ; but he
still refused, and after a while he continued his journey.
When evening drew on, he halted at some deserted

The Life of St. Cuthbert

143

shepherds' huts, the season being the beginning of
winter. Here he tied his horse to the wall, and gave it
some dried grass which the wind had torn from the
roof. Having no food for himself, he turned to prayer
and singing. While thus occupied, he saw the horse
pull out a bit more of the thatch, and with it a bundle,
which fell to the ground. The bundle was wrapped in
linen, and contained half a loaf of bread, still warm,
and meat enough for a meal. Cuthbert at once gave
thanks for this miraculous bounty, on which he pro
ceeded to feast, dividing the bread into two parts, one
for himself and one for his horse. From that time
Cuthbert was more than ever determined to fast up
to three o'clock on Friday, believing that the supply
of food when he was hungry from his long fast was
a token of divine approbation. An aged monk of
Wearmouth, Ingwald the priest, told this story to
Bede, and Cuthbert himself told it to Ingwald.
History does not repeat what the shepherds said
when they found their little store of food gone. A
further miracle of feeding is related by Bede as
having occurred in Cuthbert 's experience. An angel
brought him three loaves which surpassed the lily in
whiteness, the rose in odour, and honey in taste.
From that time forward, Bede states that the saint
was frequently supplied with food direct from the Lord.
Cuthbert had become a monk before this last
miracle of the loaves happened. He chose the Abbey
of Melrose as the place of his profession, knowing,
as Bede says in compliment of those for whom he
wrote, that the church of Lindisfarne contained many
holy men whose precept and example would be of
service to him, but attracted to Melrose by the report
of the great virtues of Boisil, the prior. The abbat was

144 The Venerable Bede

Eata, one of the twelve English boys given to Aidan
by King Oswald to be trained for the ministry.
Cuthbert rode up to the abbey gate with his spear in
his hand, the ordinary equipment of a layman in those
days of insecurity.1 Boisil was standing at the door,
and exclaimed in the hearing of one who told it to
Bede, " Behold a servant of the Lord ! " In a few
days the abbat, who was absent, returned, and on the
favourable report of his prior he admitted Cuthbert
a monk of Melrose. Some years after this event,
King Alchfrith of Deira granted a tract of land at
Ripon to Abbat Eata of Melrose, for the redemp
tion of his soul, and Eata built a monastery there,
and sent Cuthbert and others to occupy it. Melrose,
it must be remembered, being south of the Forth,
was in Northumbria, not in Scotland. Before long,
however, Cuthbert and the monks were expelled from
Ripon, and other monks were established there. Bede
passes over this fact very lightly, for it was delicate
ground. He contents himself with saying that since
everything in this world is frail and changing, like the
ocean when a storm comes on, so the monks of
Melrose found themselves expelled from their new
home at Ripon. In his Ecclesiastical History he
was under no obligation to avoid what might offend
Lindisfarne. He tells us that the Melrose monks
observed the British rule of time for keeping Easter ;
and " being left to their choice " by Alchfrith, either to
give up their Easter, or to give up their lands, chose

1 William Greenwell of Durham, whose praise is in all Archaeo
logical Societies, has shown, in one of his latest papers before the
Society of Antiquaries of London, that the people of these islands
developed, independently of all outside influences, the most perfect
form of spear-head. The paper was written in his ninetieth year.
He died at the age of ninety-six, when this present book was being
written.

The Life of St. Cuthbert 145

the latter alternative and returned to Melrose, Ripon
being given to Wilfrith, who had been brought up by
the Scotic monks but had now become the eager
partisan of the Italian Easter. Thus Cuthbert had an
early practical experience of the tender mercies of those
who are at variance on ceremonial matters of religion.
He himself spoke with unflinching severity of those
who differed from him in this matter of Easter, almost
with his last breath.

After a time Prior Boisil died. We have a very
interesting account of his latest days, which he spent
in the company of Cuthbert who owed to him his
admission to Melrose. It is clear from Bede's account
that Boisil was understood to have prophetic power.
In this power he announced that he had only seven
days to live and have the use of his tongue ; Cuthbert
must therefore learn from him all that there was
time to teach him. Cuthbert asked what he had
better read, to last through the seven days. " I have
here/' Boisil replied, "a codex with seven quaternions
of St. John's Gospel. We can read one a day, and
meditate thereon as best we may." This they ac
complished in the time, for they sought simple lessons,
and did not enter upon profound questions. Boisil
died on the seventh day, having told to Cuthbert all
that was to happen to him for the rest of his life.
Among other things, he told him he would become a
bishop. In course of time, Cuthbert retired to an
island and lived as an anchorite. He would not tell
any one of this alarming prophecy of a bishopric, but
he used to say to the brethren who visited him on his
island, " Though I dwell in a very modest little cell,
surrounded by the waves of the ocean which cut me
off from the sight and knowledge of mortal men, not

146 The Venerable Bede

even so do I think myself safe from the snares of the
world, and I fear that somehow or other I shall be
carried away by the love of money." We may re
member that Bede, too, wrote gravely and compre
hensively of men holding bishoprics as a means of
making money.

In succession to his prophetic friend, Cuthbert
became prior of Melrose, but, in imitation of Prior
Boisil, he was very far from confining himself to the
domestic business and internal affairs of the monastery
which were the special duties of a prior. He performed
these duties with pious zeal, but he did much more . He
found that the neighbouring people were at best Chris
tians in name only. They led evil lives, and in time of
danger and pestilence they neglected the sacrament
of their faith and had recourse to idolatrous remedies,
as though they could restrain, by means of pagan
mysteries and charms, a blow sent from God. Cuth
bert made frequent attempts to eradicate these evils.
He sallied forth from the monastery, often on horse
back, more often on foot, to preach in the neighbour
ing villages, as Boisil had done. He specially selected
such hamlets as were situated in mountainous places,
difficult of access, and thus likely to deter teachers of
less zeal than himself. In these out-of-the-way places
he would often spend a week, sometimes two or three
weeks or even a month, finding full exercise for his
powers of teaching. He had great gifts, and he met
with great success. We gather from his biographer
that he possessed three special qualifications for the
work. His methods of teaching were skilful ; he was
determined to press home to the conviction of his
hearers any lesson he had once begun ; and he had a
face like an angel. When such a man, impelled by the

The Life of St. Cuthbert

147

love of Christ, gave himself for weeks at a time to the
ignorant inhabitants of a hamlet buried among the
hills, we need no Bede to tell us the result. " No one
dared attempt to hide from him the secrets of his heart.
All confessed openly ; for they felt they could conceal
nothing from him, and they hoped to wipe away
their offences by the fruits of repentance which he
enjoined."

Several of the miracles recorded in Cuthbert 's life
give significant evidence of the scantness of the popu
lation in the north of England, and of the difficulties
and dangers of such journeys as Christian teachers
had to take. In addition to the miracles of feeding
mentioned above, we read that on one occasion Cuth
bert left the monastery of Melrose with two of the
brethren on some necessary business which took him
to the land of the southern Picts. This territory Bede
calls Niduari, " the land of the Picts which is called
Niduari." If this meant Nithsdale, a land journey of
some forty or fifty miles from Melrose would have
taken them there. If the territory of Whithern is
meant, forty miles would take them to the Solway,
and forty or fifty miles of sea would land them at that
promontory. Northumbrian conquest of the districts
west of the Forth had cut these Picts ofE from the
Picts of Fife and Forfar. They went by sea and arrived
at their destination on the day after Christmas Day.
As soon as they landed, a severe storm set in, which
entirely prevented their return. Snow fell for days.
They found no one to provide food or shelter. The
Epiphany was close at hand, and they were in
danger of perishing from cold and hunger. Cuthbert
under these trying circumstances did not lose the
cheerful and kindly temper for which he was remark-

148 The Venerable Bede

able, nor did he cease to pray for help throughout each
night. One morning he took his companions down to
the shore, to the spot where he had spent the night in
prayer, and showed them three pieces of flesh of a
large fish — a dolphin Bede calls it, probably a porpoise,
porpoises were used as food in the Middle Ages, and
were considered a delicacy — cut up and prepared for
cooking. This he told them was prepared by the
Lord, and the number of the pieces, he informed
them, signified that in three days* time there would
be favourable weather. All fell out as he said. For
three days the storm raged violently; on the fourth
day a calm came on, followed by a fair wind, which
carried them safely back.

On another occasion he went on foot with one boy
as an attendant, to preach at a distant village. Cuth-
bert became tired with the walk long before reaching
the place, and turning to the boy he asked him where
they should stop to take refreshment, and whether he
knew of any one on their road who would supply
them with food. The boy confessed that he was
thinking about food when Cuthbert spoke, for they
had brought no provision with them, arid he knew of
no one on their way, and he was hungry. Cuthbert
pointed to a bird flying in the air, and told the boy
that God could feed them even by that eagle. Soon
after this, they came to a river, on the bank of which
the eagle had alighted. " There is our handmaid,"
the saint exclaimed, " run and see what God has
provided/' The boy ran, and found that the eagle
had caught a fish of considerable size. Cuthbert
took half for themselves, leaving the other half for
the bird, and continued his journey till they reached
a village, where the fish was cooked.

The Life of St. Cuthbert

149

King Ecgfrith had a prefect, Hildemer by name,
who was devoted to good works with all his house.
His wife occupied herself in almsgiving and the
exercise of other Christian virtues. Cuthbert often
visited them when his business took him in their
direction. In the midst of her religious activity, it is
said, Hildemer 's wife was suddenly afflicted of a devil.
She gnashed her teeth, uttered piteous cries, and
tossed about her limbs in such a manner as to terrify
all who saw her. The prefect saw that she grew
worse, and indeed was at the point of death. He
rode off in haste to Cuthbert ; begged him to send a
priest to visit her and give her the sacrament of the
Body and Blood of Christ ; and entreated that she
might be buried at Melrose. He was ashamed, Bede
says, to tell Cuthbert that she was out of her mind,
for Cuthbert had always seen her in the possession of
her senses. He feared that this affliction might cause
him to think that she had not been a true servant of
the Lord. When Cuthbert informed him of his deter
mination to come himself instead of sending a priest
he began to weep, for he saw that the saint would
detect the concealment of which he had been guilty.
Cuthbert divined the cause of his tears, and assured
him that so far from thinking such a thing of his wife,
he expected to find her well enough to come and
meet them and take the reins of his horse. Accord
ingly, when they drew near to the house, the prefect's
wife came out and led Cuthbert 's horse by the bridle
till they reached the door, declaring that at the first
touch of the rein she felt herself entirely restored to
her former state of health.

After many years of active life at Melrose, Cuth
bert was transferred by Abbat Eata to Lindisfarne to

150 The Venerable Bede

act as abbat there, apparently as deputy to Eata, who
ruled both Lindisfarne and Melrose. From Aidan's
time Lindisfarne had had a bishop, and, like Aidan,
all its bishops were monks. Bede remarks that it is
surprising that so small an island should have both a
bishop and an abbat. He explains that the bishop
chose some one to rule over the monks as abbat,
with the consent of the brethren, and that the bishop,
priests, deacons, singers, readers, and all the ecclesi
astical staff, lived together in observance of the
monastic rule. Cuthbert began to introduce a more
strict discipline, and he soon found that some of the
brethren preferred the old customs to the new rule.
The opposition to him was carried very far. Time
after time, when the monks met in conclave, the acting
abbat was wearied by the bitter hostility displayed by
the party which stood in the way of reform. On such
occasions he would rise suddenly, without a cloud
upon his brow, and adjourn the meeting till the next
day. When they met again, he would repeat his
arguments, as if there had never been any opposition.
By this method he converted them all to his practice
in the end. Bede very significantly says, in recording
the success of Cuthbert 's tactics, that he was a man
of endless patience, and that it was impossible to
tire him out in mind or body. Given a chairman
possessed of unlimited patience, and with unlimited
powers of adjournment and unlimited ability to tire
out all opponents, it is scarcely to be wondered at that
in the long run his views prevailed.

One grievance the monks had which they seem to
have persisted in cherishing. They had been ac
customed to be free from all chance of being dis
turbed during their hours of sleep, whether at night

The Life of St. Cuthbert

or at noon ; the latter being a general time of repose,
as we find from more than one story in Cuthbert 's
life. Cuthbert rebuked them for their unwillingness
to be disturbed when any sudden occasion arose, and
for taking it ill when they were roused from sleep.
For himself, he assured them that any one who
awoke him did him a kindness, by enabling him to
turn to something active and useful. Men with less
power of existing without sleep might fairly have
been excused, one might suppose, for not quite follow
ing Cuthbert in his precept and practice. He would
spend three or four consecutive nights in watching
and praying, neither going to his own bed in the
common dormitory nor taking rest elsewhere. On
such occasions he kept himself awake by singing or
doing some handiwork, sometimes by walking round
the island and observing everything on the way.
And he had an uncomfortable habit of walking into
the sea and standing all night with the water up to
his neck. The monks of Lindisfarne not unnaturally
drew the line a little below such discipline as this.

In another respect he practised a severity which
it would appear that the monks up to his time had
not practised, and it is evident from Bede's manner
of relating it, that monks in general did not prac
tise it. Cuthbert would not wear garments of rich
material or colour. His aim was to find a dress
which should not attract attention either by its smart
ness or by its squalor. The example he set was no
doubt enforced by orders issued in his capacity of
acting abbat, and this may have been one of the points
on which the opposition to his new rule rested. Seventy
or eighty years later, the monks of Lindisfarne still
continued to dress as Cuthbert had taught them to

152 The Venerable Bede

dress. They avoided all dyed and expensive material,
and wore only wool of the natural colour.

The saint was by nature a recluse, though his
sympathetic temperament drove him into active
works of benevolence. It showed itself also in his
dealings with sinners, for we are told that he often
wept over those who were confessing to him their
sins. And his feelings were so warm, and so ready to
respond to any call upon them, that he seldom or
never got through the service of the mass without
shedding tears and losing command of his voice.
When he came to the words " Sursum Corda," " Lift
up your hearts," he was so intent upon raising his
own heart to God, so anxious that all present should
do so, that he could not raise his voice, and he groaned
rather than sang the words. After some years, his
desire for the life of a recluse mastered all other
feelings, and with the permission of Eata, and the
blessing of the brethren, he retired to a remote part
of the island. He very soon found that even this
place was not sufficiently withdrawn from the haunts
of men. He determined on a very bold step. There
was an island at some distance from Lindisfarne,
not, like it, connected with the mainland at low
water, but at all times an island surrounded by the sea,
lying some eight miles off the coast. This was one
of the Fame islands. It was not only not inhabited
by man, it was said to be the abode of evil spirits.
No one within the memory of tradition had ever lived
on this island, till Cuthbert made his home there.
On this desert place he made himself an abode in
keeping with the surroundings. It was a circular
house or hut, of considerable size, with a wall the
height of a man or more. Within, the height of the

The Life of St. Cuthbert

153

wall seemed much greater, for Cuthbert had excavated
the rock and so lowered the floor, his object being to
make a house from which he could see nothing of the
earth, only the heavens. The wall was built of the
excavated materials, and the roof was made of rough
timber and straw. The house was divided into two
chambers, one an oratory, the other the apartment in
which he lived. At the landing-place he built a large
house, for the accommodation of such brethren as might
visit him. Bede relates that angels assisted him to lift
the heavy stones, and that wood and a perennial flow
of fresh water were supplied by miracle.

In this hut he passed his days and nights. At
first, he had a window open through which he could
be seen by visitors and could see them, but he soon
closed this, and only opened it to give his blessing
or for some purpose of absolute necessity. Among
other austerities, it is recorded that he kept on his
shoes from one Easter to another, only taking them
off then in order to join in the accustomed washing
of feet at the Lord's Supper at that season. Even
his gaiters, made of skin, he did not take off for
months at a time. He sowed wheat, declaring that
he must not live on the labours of others ; and when
it would not grow, he sowed barley in its place, deter
mining to return to the monastery if it in turn refused
to grow. His determination was not put to the test,
for an abundant crop appeared. When the barley was
ripening, birds came and made great havoc among
it, but he delivered a solemn address to them which
rid him of their presence : — " If you have received
licence from God, do as He allows you ; if not, get
you gone/' This story he told himself. It was not
the only occasion on which he showed his power over

154 The Venerable Bede

birds. There were crows on the island, and he de
tected them making off with portions of his thatch
to build their nests with. He warned them to desist,
and when they disregarded the warning, he banished
them. Three days after this he was digging in his field.
A crow came and alighted at his feet. It spread out
its wings, hung down its head, made sounds significant
of humiliation, and demeaned itself with so much sub
mission and propriety that the saint gave it leave to
return to the island. It then flew off to fetch its mate,
and they returned bearing on their beaks a lump of
lard as a present to Cuthbert, — a fitting gift Bede calls
it. Cuthbert kept the lard for the double purpose of
greasing the boots of the brethren and serving as a
text for inculcating upon his visitors a lesson of sub
missive humility.

In the year 684 a great synod was held at Twyford,
on the Alne. King Ecgfrith was there, and Archbishop
Theodore presided. The business of the synod was
the election of a bishop. The vast bishopric once
held by Wilfrith, including the whole of Bernicia and
Deira, had been divided into two on the expulsion
of Wilfrith, when Bosa was made bishop of Deira, with
his seat at York, and Eata bishop of Bernicia, with
his seat at Hexham or at Lindisfarne. Three years
later, Theodore added two more bishops ; he made
Trumwine bishop of the Picts north of the Solway,
who were at that time included in the kingdom
of Northumbria, and Tunbert bishop of Hexham, Eata
remaining bishop of Lindisfarne. Tunbert was in
course of time deposed, and the synod at Twyford
unanimously chose Cuthbert as bishop, to supply the
vacancy caused in the episcopate. It was afterwards
arranged that Eata should go to Hexham, and Cuth-

The Life of St. Cuthbert

155

bert should be bishop of Lindisfarne. Even with this
concession to Cuthbert they had great difficulty in
persuading him to accept the bishopric. Messengers
and letters from the synod were of no use ; he would
not leave his solitude and present himself before the
assembly. Mahomet was obliged to go to the moun
tain. The king, with Bishop Trumwine and a party
of great men and ecclesiastics, crossed over to the
island. The brethren of the monastery on Lindis
farne joined them, and they all knelt together before
Cuthbert and begged him with tears to come to the
synod. He gave way, and consented to be made
bishop, chiefly moved by the fact that his old friend
Boisil had prophesied that he would be a bishop.

The manner in which Cuthbert fulfilled his episcopal
duties completely justified the choice of the synod.
He taught with as much vigour as when he had
visited the hamlets on the hills in the days of his
youth. And, as Bede quaintly puts it, he did that
which is the best assistance to a teacher, he practised
what he preached. He saved the needy from the
hand of the oppressor, and the poor man from him
that would destroy him. He comforted the sad and
the faint-hearted, and those whom he found unduly
elated he brought down to a godly sorrow. In the
midst of the bustle and pomp which surrounded him
he retained his simple ways and monastic severity.
He gave food to the hungry, clothing to the destitute.
The miracles which he performed bore witness to his
virtues. He is said to have possessed the gift of
prophecy, in the form afterwards known as second-
sight. Thus, when he visited ^Elfleda, abbess of the
monastery on Coquet Isle, she adjured him in the most
solemn way to tell her how long her brother Ecgfrith

156 The Venerable Bede

would reign. He told her in a somewhat vague and
oracular manner that he had scarcely a year to live.
She then pressed him to say who would succeed, for
Ecgfrith had neither sons nor brothers. " Behold the
sea/' he said, " how full it is of islands. It is easy for
God to provide from the isles some one to reign over
England." Then she remembered one Aldfrith, who
was supposed to be an illegitimate son of her father,
and lived in studious retirement in the Scottish isles.
Shortly after his accession to the bishopric, he made a
journey to Lugubalia (Carlisle), "which the English
incorrectly call Luel," Bede says. His intention was to
visit the queen, who was there in her sister's monas
tery, awaiting the event of the invasion of the Picts
by her husband. The people took Cuthbert to show
him the walls of their city, and the fountain made in
a remarkable manner by the Romans. As he stood
by the well, he was suddenly disturbed in spirit. He
groaned deeply, and said that the battle was over.
He then went to the queen, and urged her to leave
Carlisle for the royal city on the following Monday —
it was then Saturday evening, and he told her it was
unlawful to ride in a chariot on the Lord's Day — lest
by chance it should prove that the king had been
slain. It was found afterwards that the king was
slain exactly at the time when Cuthbert was standing
at the Roman well; and Aldfrith succeeded him, in
accordance with the saint's forecast. In the same
spirit of prophecy he foretold the time of his own
death, and also the fact that one Herebert, who lived
a hermit's life on an island " in the great marshy lake
from which the Derwent takes its rise," would die at
the same time with him. On one occasion we have
an incidental notice of that rapt expression of counten-

The Life of St. Cuthbert

157

ance which in later times has accompanied the
exercise of second-sight. He was sitting at meat
with the above-mentioned Abbess ^Elfleda, for whom
he was about to consecrate a church. Suddenly the
colour of his face changed. His eyes became fixed.
The knife dropped from his hand. His attendant
priest bent down and whispered to the abbess that he
must have seen something they had not seen. Ad
dressing him as " my lord bishop," she asked him
for what reason he had dropped his knife. He put
off the question at first, but she persisted, and he
told her he had seen the soul of a holy man carried
up to heaven in the arms of angels. From whence
was it carried ? she asked. From her monastery.
Whose soul was it ? She would tell him that the
next day when he was celebrating mass, he informed
her. The next morning the body of a worthy shep
herd was found under a tree from which he had
fallen, and the abbess, on being informed of it, went
to the bishop, who had already begun to consecrate
the church, and begged him to remember in the
mass her servant Hadwald. Thus all fell out as
Cuthbert had foretold.

Cuthbert 's miracles were, some of them, wrought in
his absence. There is one striking story of a miracle
of this kind which will show us how fully the people
of his time believed in his wonder-working power. It
may show us also, if we accept it as it stands, how
powerful over bodily disease is the influence and
example of a firm faith. The prefect Hildemer, whose
wife Cuthbert had cured, afterwards fell ill himself,
and his life was despaired of. His friends were sitting
round his bed, consoling him as well as they were able,
when one of them remarked that he had with him some

158 The Venerable Bede

blessed bread which Cuthbert had given him : "I
believe," he added, " that unless the dulness of our
faith hinder, the taste of this bread would cure our
friend." They were all laymen, but of a reverential
turn of mind ; and the English were by nature greatly
given to a belief in the efficacy of amulets, and charms,
and simples administered with pious words. They
turned to one another and made a mutual confession
of complete belief that by partaking of that blessed
bread their friend could be cured. Then they filled
a cup with water, put a little of the bread into it, and
gave it to the sick man to drink. He drank, the
internal pain ceased, and the wasting of the limbs
disappeared. He was perfectly cured.

Cuthbert held ordinations at various places of his
diocese. On one occasion we find him ordaining
priests at Carlisle. He was diligent in performing
the rite of Confirmation. When he cured an earl's
wife with holy water he was on a Confirmation tour,
as a bishop of these days would say, or, as Bede
describes it, he was going through the rural districts,
the homesteads, the villages, to lay hands on those
who were recently baptized, that they might receive
the Holy Spirit. At another time we hear of him
visiting the outlying parts of his fold, and reaching a
place among the hills where a large number of people
Were collected from all the villages round about, that
he might lay his hands upon them. But there was
no church among the hills, nor any place where the
bishop and his companions could be housed. The
people set up tents for him, and for themselves they
cut down branches and made booths. Thus lodged,
the bishop preached and confirmed for two days.
His short episcopate included the period of a dreadful

The Life of St. Cuthbert 159

pestilence ; many villages and estates which had once
been well populated were almost or entirely "cleared of
inhabitants. Cuthbert diligently continued to visit
his diocese under these conditions, and exhorted and
comforted the scanty remnants of the population.

After two years of an active episcopate, Cuthbert
retired once more to his solitary island. He was
asked when his people might hope to see him back
again, and he answered, when they brought his body.
About three months after this he died. Abbat Here-
frid was with him at the last, and from him Bede
learned all that occurred. When he was first taken
ill, he sent away Herefrid and the party of monks
who had come to visit him, bidding them bury him in
his island of Fame : he was to be wrapped in linen
which the Abbess Verca had given him, and laid in
a coffin which he had received from Abbat Cudda.
They were naturally very urgent that he should allow
some of them to stay with him, but he was positive
in his dismissal, and they obeyed. For five days
they were prevented by bad weather from reaching
the island, and when at last they did get there, they
found him in a miserable state.1 For five days and

1 A paragraph in the Newcastle Chronicle (A.D. 1877), relating to
the Fame Islands, may be quoted as an illustration of the difficulties
still attending a visit to the islands in tempestuous weather. " An
important work — the erection of fog-signals — has been for some
months in the course of 'construction at the Longstone, the scene of
the famous deed of Grace Darling. The Messrs. Armstrong, of Aln-
wick, have the contract for the work, and by some misfortune the
men on their return from home got to the island without their pro
visions, which were to follow them immediately, but continuous
storms coming on, it was impossible to reach the rocky island, and
the men were reduced to the greatest straits for want of food. The
flag signals for flesh, flour, and water were hung out in vain. For
a whole week they had to subsist upon three small ' ham shanks,'
with hardly any meat upon them. One of the men, when attempting
to shoot a Norwegian crow, nearly lost his life, the run of water
among the rocks being so sudden and violent. At high water it

160 The Venerable Bede

five nights he had not stirred from the seat to which
he had gone when they left him, at a distance from
his cell. He had supported life by gnawing an onion ;
he had a store of five onions, which he kept under his
bed, and they found that he had only eaten about
half of one of them. His legs, long swollen, were
ulcerated. He was worn out with pain and want of
food. From that time to the day of his death, about
a fortnight, he allowed certain monks to stay with
him, especially Herefrid and Bede major, not our
historian who was then a boy of twelve or thirteen.
The monks of Lindisfarne sent a deputation to him,
entreating that he would allow himself to be buried
in their church. The dying saint's answer was so
curious that it is worth while to transcribe it in full.
" I greatly wish to rest here, where I have fought some
little fight for the Lord, where I desire to finish my
course, whence I hope that the righteous Judge will
take me to receive the crown of righteousness. And
for you too it would be better that I should rest here,
on account of the influx of fugitives and criminals to
seek sanctuary at my grave. Humble as I am, they
will seek this asylum, for the fame of me has gone
forth that I am a servant of Christ. Thus you will
often have to intercede for such with the great men
of the world, and you will have much trouble in the
matter." When at length their asseverations that labour
of this kind would be pleasing to them induced him to
yield, he gave a curious piece of advice, for which Bede

would have been fatal to attempt to go beyond the rampart that
surrounded the lighthouse, for the boiling surf was continually dash
ing over it. The workmen dried their tea-leaves and smoked them
for tobacco. At last, on Christmas Day, by taking advantage of the
wind, ten of them succeeded in reaching the inner Fame, where they
obtained some refreshments. On the Sunday they had nothing to eat
but a few crumbs of bread. They reached Alnwick on Friday last. '

The Life of St. Cuthbert 161

says they thanked him on bended knee. " If you
really do wish to take my body to Lindisfarne, I
think you should bury it in the inner part of the
church ; for then you can visit the sepulchre your
selves whenever you wish, and you will have it in
your power to grant or to withhold leave for others
to visit it."

About nine o'clock one morning, when the brothers
visited him, he asked them to carry him to his cell
and oratory. When they reached the door, they
asked if one of them might go in with him to wait
upon him, for no one as yet had ever entered his
cell. He selected from among them one who was
himself ill, Walstod by name, and these two spent
six hours alone. At the end of that time, Walstod
came out to tell Herefrid that Cuthbert wished to
see him, and at the same time announced that he
had himself been cured of his disease by the saint.
Herefrid went to him at three o'clock, and found him
reclining in one corner of the oratory, opposite the
altar. He sat by his side, and entreated him to leave
some last words of counsel for the brethren. Pain
fully and at intervals, for he was too ill to speak more
than a few words at a time, the dying man said these
words, as nearly as Herefrid could remember : " Keep
peace among yourselves and divine love. When you
meet in council, take earnest pains to be of one
mind. Have mutual concord, too, with other servants
of Christ. Despise none who come to you for hospi
tality and are of the household of faith, but receive
them, keep them, and speed them on their way,
with friendly kindness, not esteeming yourselves
better than others of the same faith and life. But
have no fellowship with those who err from the unity

1 62 The Venerable Bede

of the Catholic faith, either by keeping Easter at a
wrong time or by living perversely. Know this, too,
and keep it in memory, that if necessity compels you
to choose between two evils, I greatly prefer that you
should take my bones from the tomb and abandon this
place, carrying them with you, than that you should
in any way consent to submit to schismatics. Strive
most diligently to learn and to keep the Catholic
rules of the Fathers. Practise the rule which God
through my ministry has given you ; for I know that,
however some have despised me during my life, when
I am dead you will see more clearly what manner of
man I was, and that what I have taught is not to be
despised."

Then he ceased to speak or think of this world.
He passed the time till evening, and on into the
night, in quiet and prayerful expectation of future
bliss. Before the dawn of day he strengthened him
self for his departure by the Communion of the Lord's
Body and Blood. He raised his eyes and hands to
heaven, and breathed out his soul. The brethren
carried his body to the ship, and took it to Lindis-
farne. There it was met by a great company of
monks, with choirs of singers, and it was laid in the
Church of St. Peter1 in a stone coffin, on the right side
of the altar. Nine years later, when it was supposed
that the flesh would be reduced to dust and the bones
might be put into a smaller and more convenient
receptacle, the coffin was opened, the monks obtaining
the necessary permission from Bishop Eadbert, Cuth-
bert's successor. To their surprise they found the
body unchanged, the joints still flexible. The cloth
ing, too, was neither decayed nor faded. This was
1 The true dedication was St. Peter and St. Paul.

The Life of St. Cuthbert 163

on the anniversary of his burial, the 2Oth of Agrjl.
A fortnight later Bishop Eadbert himself died, and
was buried below the coffin which contained Cuth
bert 's remains. The story of the many wanderings of
this coffin with its precious relics belongs to a later
period. Bede's bones were mingled with Cuthbert 's,
being found in the same tomb in 1104.

One more miracle we may tell of. After his death
a boy was brought to the monastery in a cart by the
parents, who did not know what to do with him. He
was out of his mind, very noisy and violent ; he
yelled and bit, and would not be quiet. There is a
remedy known to a few persons who are a good deal
about horses, by which the most fractious horse can
be brought to walk quietly past any object which he
has altogether refused to pass. It is a simple remedy.
Throw a little dust or mud off the road into his
mouth, and the horse becomes at once so absorbed
in the endeavour to expel all the dirt that he will
walk quietly past anything. Perhaps this is a remedy
dating from Saxon times ; at any rate the remedy
suggested by one of the priests in the monastery was
very similar both in its composition and in its effects.
He went to the place where the water with which the
dead saint's body was washed had been thrown, and
he brought some of the mud to the sick-room of the
monastery and poured it into the raging boy's open
mouth, from which at the moment dreadful cries
were issuing. The cries ceased instantly, the mouth
was closed, the head fell back in a profound sleep ;
and the next morning the boy got up perfectly cured.

Relics of St. Cuthbert of very great interest and value
exist still. When his tomb was opened in 1104 a
copy of St. John's Gospel was found in it, a sixth-

164 The Venerable Bede

century manuscript. It is now at Stonyhurst. The
famous Lindisfarne Gospels are described on pages
170 and 318. We have other personal relics, shown on
Plates 7 and 8.

Plate 7 shows St. Cuthbert's pectoral cross, found on
his breast when his grave was opened in 1827. The
representation is the full size of the original. It
was found deep down among the remains of the
robes which were nearest to the breast of the Saint,
and its position quite accounts for its not being seen
and described by Prior Reginald during the opera
tions of 1104. It is of curiously dulled gold, except the
loop at the top, which is of bright pure gold. It weighs
fifteen pennyweights and twelve grains. It has a
large garnet in the centre and one at each angle, with
twelve small ones on each arm. It will be remembered
that the Dream of the Holy Rood, which will be
mentioned in connection with Caedmon's religious
dream-poems, places before the mind's eye a cross of
gold, adorned with gems, " four shone at base, on
earth, and five on the spreading arms."

Another personal possession of St. Cuthbert which
we still have is his portable altar, Plate 8. The
anonymous monk of Lindisfarne who describes the
last rites for the body of the departed Saint, tells us
that they clothed him in sacerdotal vestments and
placed upon his breast the sacramental oblations.
There can be no doubt that the consecrated elements
were placed on this portable altar, which was found
on his breast in 1827. When the remains of the Saint
were placed in the new Norman Cathedral Church at
Durham in 1104 (August 29), the monks clothed the
body in an additional robe, " the most costly pall they
could find in the church, and they replaced in the

The Life of St. Cuthbert 165

coffin all the things they had found there, including
' a silver altar/ ' Reginald, writing later on the
information of the elders of the church, says, " He
has with him in the coffin a silver altar."

The altar consists of plates of embossed silver
attached by silver nails to a slip of oak about a third of
an inch in thickness, and about six inches by five in
area. The fragments of the embossed silver which
still remain show very interesting ornamentation,
typical of the time, and portions of an inscription
which suggest a combination of Greek and Latin
letters ; this, too, is typical of the time, for on the
breast of Bede's friend Bishop Acca of Hexham there
was found in the year 1000 a similar altar, formed of
two pieces of wood fastened with silver nails, with
the inscription in curiously combined Greek and Latin :
" A Ime trinitati agie Sophie Sancte Marie " ("to the
Holy Trinity, to holy wisdom or to Saint Sophia, to
Saint Mary"). These portable altars are called in
the inventories " super altars," the " altar " in Arch
bishop Ecgbert's time being the solid structure, and
the tabula altaris, the " altar table," being the specially
consecrated plate or insertion on the upper surface
on which the elements were placed. The itinerant
priests carried with them consecrated plates of metal or
stone, to be used where there was no consecrated altar.

Next in order of date come some of the robes found
on the body. St. Cuthbert was highly respected by
members of the royal family of Wessex, and when
King Athelstane proceeded to the north with an army
he clothed the body of the Saint with additional robes.
It is certain that the robes shown in Plates 9 and 10 are
portions of the robes taken to Durham by Athelstane,
for they are dated and placed by the inscriptions

1 66 The Venerable Bede

wrought into them : " jElflad fieri precepit pio episcopo
Frithestano" ("^Elflaed caused to be made lor the
pious bishop Frithestan ") . This places the making
of the robes in Wessex. ^Iflaed was the queen of
Edward the Elder, Alfred's son, and Frithestan was
the contemporary bishop of Winchester. It also dates
the making of the robes. ^Elflaed was queen till
her death, which took place before 919, Frithestan
was bishop of Winchester from 909, and died in 933.
Thus they were Queen and Bishop together for at
most ten years, during which time these robes were
made. So long as Frithestan lived, his robes would
remain with him. After his death they might natur
ally be at the disposal of any one in great position
who wished to make a special gift that was to cost
him nothing or very little. Possibly they were Palace
property, for use at celebrations there. Athelstane,
a son, said to be illegitimate, of ^Elflaed's husband,
succeeded to the throne in 924 and died in 940, seven
years after Frithestan. In 933-4 he successfully
invaded the territory of the Scots, and on his way he
made rich gifts to the body of St. Cuthbert, then
lying at Chester le Street, among them a stole and
maniple. Both the stole and maniple now at Durham
have the inscription given above worked into them
in worsted work. The substance of these robes is
narrow gold tape, woven with self-edges for the
insertion of the lettering, the prophets, the floral
ornamentation, and all parts of the subjects, in
worsted. It is a marvellous piece of work, just a
thousand years old, with an unusually clear and con
vincing pedigree.

Besides these remarkable portions of the bishop's
robes, some portions of a very splendid robe were

The Life of St. Cuthbert 167

found.1 It was of stout silk, ornamented with circular
medallions two feet across, containing a vase, sym
bolical of an island floating on a sea. The floating
vessel was laden with fruits, and the whole was enclosed
by a circular border of fruits. The sea, covered with
ripples, had eider ducks and large fishes, and at the
lower margin of the silk, between each two medallions,
were pairs of solan geese. The colour of the fruits
throughout was gold, the stalks were red. The sea
was purple, and the fishes were red. There were
portions of another robe, of thin silk.2 Its medallions
were less artistic. They had a very rich border of
incurved octagons fifteen inches across, enclosing a
man on horseback, with hawk and hound, with a row
of rabbits below. These magnificent robes have
usually been held to be the work of the Arab weavers
of Sicily, and were presumably made between 1085 and
1104, to be ready for the translation of the Saint's
body to the new Cathedral Church of Durham. The
present writer had blocks made of the full size of each
of the two medallions. The former of the two is very
handsome, stamped in red on a long piece of thin
yellow silk. The blocks were made by Sir Thomas
Wardle, of Leek, and are still in the possession of his
sons at their silk works at Leek. Each of the Colonial
Bishops at the Lambeth Conference of 1908 who
attended the gathering of Bishops at Lindisfarne
received from Bishop Browne of Bristol two pieces of
silk printed from these blocks. The octagonal medal
lion was found perfect. The island medallion had lost
the upper part of the vase, all but a small part at the top
which suggested the rude filling in that was purposely
made inartistic. The robe with the circular medallion

1 See Plate n. a See Plate 12.

i68 The Venerable Bede

must have been made to order; and possibly the
other pattern was designed to represent King Ecgfrith.
St. Cuthbert and the Fame Islands are connected, in
tradition and in fact, with eider ducks, solan geese,
porpoises, and rabbits. The suggestion that the man
with hawk arid hound may represent King Ecgfrith
may at first sight seem fanciful. But a good deal can
be said in its favour. Hawking was practised in his
time, for we have letters not long after this which
show that this sport, so fascinating in itself and so
very useful as a means for procuring birds for food,
had got a firm hold in Anglo-Saxon England. Alch-
frith, Ecgfrith's elder brother, is represented on the
contemporary memorial cross at Bewcastle with a
hawk on his wrist. Further, when Cuthbert per
sistently refused to accept the bishopric of Hexham,
the whole Synod by whom he had been elected, at
Twyford on the Alne, with King Ecgfrith at the head,
sailed to Lindisfarne and on bended knee entreated
him to accede to their request. This visit of the king
and synod to the Saint on his island is graphically
shown, in very skilful drawing, among the illumina
tions of the early mediaeval Life.

The coffin in which the monks of Lindisfarne
enclosed their saint nine years after his death is
described in Chapter XV.

The designs on the silk robes of St. Cuthbert are of
such exceptional interest that great pains have been
taken to produce specially accurate copies of them for
this volume. Photographs have been taken from the
full-size photographs in the Victoria and Albert
Museum, and the missing parts of the designs have been
faintly outlined by Mr. Emery Walker's skilful staff.
We are greatly indebted to Mr. Kendrick, the Keeper of

The Life of St. Cuthbert 169

the Textiles in the Museum, for his courteous help.
It has been ascertained that the medallion containing
a man with horse and hound is not woven in the silk.
It was printed, presumably from a wood block, with
some adhesive substance, and gold leaf was then
applied to the adhesive substance, some flakes of
which still remain. The pattern is now shown on the
silk by the remains of the adhesive substance with
which it was printed.

The most recent view is that these silks are not the
work of Arab weavers in Sicily. Opinion appears to be
settling upon Syria and the Mesopotamia!! region as the
centres of this very beautiful art. As we shall see in
the next paragraph, " Syrian purple " was the de
scriptive phrase used in Charlemagne's time.

Plate 13 shows, for purposes of comparison with
St. Cuthbert 's robes, a circular medallion on silk,
found in the tomb of Charlemagne when it was opened
in the presence of the Emperor William II. It has
been supposed to date from the year 1000, when Otho
III opened the tomb, or possibly as late as 1166 under
Barbarossa when Charlemagne was canonised ; and
to have replaced an earlier robe. Plate 14 shows an
elephant robe which is evidently earlier in details of
design, and has been attributed to Charlemagne's own
time, in the eighth century. These two elephant robes
may have been merely Oriental in design. On the
other hand, they may have had a direct connection
with Charlemagne's interest in his favourite elephant
Abulabaz, given to him by Harun al Raschid, which
he used to take about with him in some of his pro
gresses. Leo III gave to Charlemagne among other
great treasures " two robes of Syrian purple, with
borders of cloth of gold wrought with elephants."

170 The Venerable Bede

The greatest of the treasures connected with St.
Cuthbert is the Gospel-book of the Church of Lindis-
farne, of the art of which some account is given in
chapter XVIII. Some points of interest may be
mentioned here.

The Calendar prefixed to the Lindisfarne Gospel-
book is evidently not a local Calendar. The list of
Saints shows this quite clearly, both by what it does
not contain and specially by what it does contain.
There are very few entries relating to the festivals of
Saints. Two of these very few relate to St. Januarius,
and that of course suggests the Church of Naples.
Another entry relates to the dedication of the Basilica
of St. Stephen, and St. Stephen was the earliest dedica
tion of the Cathedral Church of Naples. Now Abbat
Hadrian had dwelt near Naples, and had presumably
become possessed of a manuscript with a Neapolitan
Calendar, which his friend and colleague Benedict
Biscop had taken north with him and placed in the
library at Wearmouth or Jarrow. That there was a
close connection between the Lindisfarne scriptorium
and Benedict Biscop's libraries, is shown by the fact
that the figure of St. Matthew in the Gospel-book is
copied from the figure of Ezra in the Codex Amiatinus,
which, as we have seen, had its home in Bede's time
at Wearmouth. This gives another special interest to
the Lindisfarne Gospels; for the Ezra in the Codex
Amiatinus traces back to Galla Placidia and Cassio-
dorus. Yet another special interest is to be found in
the entry in the Calendar of the Lindisfarne Gospels,
" Dedicatio Basilicae sci Stephani " ; for we have seen
precisely that phrase employed on the dedication
stone of the church of Jarrow, " Dedicatio Basilicae
sci Pauli."

CHAPTER IX

CAEDMON AND WILFRITH

Caedmon — His early life — Inspiration — Sacred poems — Death
scene — His Memorial Cross at Whitby — The Ruthwell Cross —
The Dream of the Holy Rood — The Quinisext Council — Oswald's
wooden cross — Bede's Memorial Cross at Rooker Point — Wil-
frith's expulsions and restorations — Bede's silence.

BEDE'S account of Caedmon is so exceedingly inter
esting that it may be well to give it as nearly in his own
way as English can give what is stated in Latin. It is
a digression from, or a supplement to, his account of
Hilda and her teaching work at Whitby, where five
bishops had their training under her rule. We could
scarcely find a better example of Bede's way of telling
interesting facts.

There was in the monastery of this abbess a brother
specially marked out by divine grace, in that he was
wont to make poems apt for religion and piety, after
this fashion, that whatever he learned from the divine
Scriptures by interpreters he speedily put into English
verse, in poetic words of the greatest sweetness and
point. By these sacred poems the minds of many were
kindled to contempt of worldly things and desire for
the life of heaven. Others of the English race after
him made trial of composing religious poems, but none
could compare with him, for he did not learn the art of
poetry of men or through human agency, but received
it as a free gift of God. Hence it was that he could not

171

172 The Venerable Bede

write poetry of a frivolous kind, or without useful influ
ence ; poems pertinent to religion were the only poems
that became his religious tongue.

He lived as a layman up to an advanced age, with
out any knowledge of poetry. On convivial occasions,
when it was arranged that for the sake of merriment
each should sing in turn, when he saw the harp coming
his way he would rise from supper and walk off to his
own abode.

When he had done this on one occasion, and had
left the place of feasting and gone to the stable where
he was in charge of the draught cattle for the night, in
due time he composed his limbs to sleep. As he slept,
there stood by him one who addressed him, calling
him by his name. " Caedmon," he said, " sing me
something." He replied, " I cannot sing, that is why
I left the company and came away here, because I
could not sing." " Nevertheless," quoth the man who
spoke to him, " you have to sing to me." " What,"
said he, " must I sing ? " " Sing," said he, " the
beginning of created things." On hearing that, he at
once began to sing verses which he had never heard, in
praise of God the Builder of the World. The sub
stance of the verses was this : — " Now must we praise
the Author of the Kingdom of Heaven, the power of
the Creator, and His design, the deeds of the Father of
Glory. How He, eternal God, stood out as the author
of all miracles, created as omnipotent guardian of the
human race first the heaven as a roof to cover the sons
of men and then the earth." That is the sense but not
the order of the words which he sang in his sleep.
Songs, however well composed, cannot be translated
word for word from one language into another without
loss of beauty and dignity. When he awoke from sleep

Caedmon and Wilfrith 173

he retained the memory of all that he had sung, and
presently added further words after the same fashion,
a song worthy of God.

In the morning he went to the steward, his master,
and told him of the gift he had received. He took him
to the abbess. A number of the more learned of the
men were called in, and he was told to describe his
dream and repeat the verses, that all might judge the
nature and the source of what had happened. They
were all agreed that a heavenly gift of grace had come
to him from the Lord. They expounded to him some
passage of sacred history or doctrine, and bade him put
that into verse if he could. He undertook the business,
and came back in the morning with the passage put
into an excellent poem. Thereupon the abbess, under
standing that the grace of God was in the man, bade
him relinquish lay dress and join the monastic body.
Accordingly he entered the monastery, with all his
belongings, and was enrolled in the society, and she
had him taught the whole course of sacred history.
Everything which he could learn by the ear he thought
over by himself, like some clean animal ruminating,
and turned into the very sweetest verses, and softly
repeating them he made his teachers his hearers in
turn. He sang the creation of the world, the origin of
man, the whole story of Genesis. He made many
poems on the departure of Israel out of Egypt and
their entry upon the land of promise, on very many
other of the Scripture histories, on the Incarnation,
Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension of the Lord, on
the coming of the Holy Spirit, on the teaching of the
Apostles. He wrote many songs on the terror of the
day of judgment and the horror of the pains of Gehenna,
and on the sweetness of the kingdom of heaven, and

174 The Venerable Bede

many more on the divine blessings and judgments.
In all these he was at pains to draw men away from
the love of wickedness and rouse them to the love and
the pursuit of good deeds. For he was a man of much
religion and humbly given to the regular discipline,
while against those willed to do otherwise he burned
with fervid zeal, and so he made a beautiful ending.

For when the time of his departure was drawing
near, he suffered fourteen days from the bodily in
firmity which is the herald of death, but in so slight
a degree that he could talk and walk all the time.
There was a house hard by in which the sick and those
who were in a dying condition were placed. On the
evening of the night on which he was to die, he asked
the attendant to find a place in the infirmary for him
to rest in. The attendant wondered at the request,
for he did not seem like to die, but did what he asked.
When he reached the infirmary, he talked and joked
with those who were there before him. After mid
night had passed, he asked if they had the Eucharist
there.1 " What need of the Eucharist ? " they replied.
" You are not going to die yet, you are full of joyous
talk, like a man in perfect health." " And yet, bring
me the Eucharist." Taking it in his hand,2 he asked
if they all felt kindly towards him, and free from
quarrel or rancour. They all replied that their minds
were most kindly disposed, completely free from any
sort of ill feeling. They asked him in turn, did he feel
kindly towards them ? " My children," he replied,
" my mind is kindly towards all the servants of
God." Then strengthening himself3 with the heavenly
viaticum he prepared for entrance into another life.

1 Si Eucharistiam intus haberent. z Qua accepta in manu.
8 Se coelesti muniens viatico.

Caedmon and Wilfrith 175

He asked how near it was to the hour at which the
brethren in the monastery would be called to sing
nocturnal lauds. He was told it was not far off. " Well
then, 1 let us await that hour. ' ' Signing himself with the
sign of the holy cross he laid his head on the pillow, and
falling into a light slumber he silently passed away. We
may well add, Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord.
This present age has seen the erection of two noble
crosses in memory of Bede the Historian and Caedmon
the Poet. It may be permitted to give here the state
ment made by this present writer in his work on The
ancient cross-shafts at Bewcastle and Ruthwell (Cam
bridge, 1916), pages 52, 53, so far as relates to the
Caedmon Cross. On the vigorous initiative of Canon
Rawnsley, a number of us determined in 1898 that
these two great men must no longer remain without a
witness in their own Northumbria. We secured the
help of Mr. C. C. Hodges of Hexham, whose unrivalled
knowledge and facility of design enabled him to pro
duce monuments not inferior to the design of the
Bewcastle and Ruthwell crosses. Caedmon 's Cross,
which we erected in the churchyard at his own
Whitby, is 19 feet 6 inches high, about 2 feet higher
than the Ruthwell Cross. The flowing vine, which
covers two of the sides at Ruthwell, is replaced by
the wild rose on one face and the English apple on
the other. The figures we selected are, our Lord in
blessing, David playing the harp, the Abbess Hild,
Caedmon himself, and four of the Whitby students of
his period (A.D. 680), Bosa, Aetla, Oftfor, and John, all
of whom, as well as their fellow-student Wilfrid II of
York, became bishops. We incised on the face, in
modern English, and also in Anglo-Saxon both in
1 Bene ergo.

176 The Venerable Bede

runes and in minuscules, the nine lines of Caedmon's
first sacred song on the Creation, beginning : —

Now must we praise

The Warder of Heaven's realm,

The Creator's might

And His mind's thought,

The works of the glorious Father.

The Poet Laureate, Alfred Austin, inaugurated the
Cross for us.

It is well known that we have in the original Anglo-
Saxon the one stanza of Caedmon's song quoted in the
preceding paragraph. It is written on the back of a
closing page of the Cambridge manuscript of the
Ecclesiastical History, a manuscript written in or very
near to the lifetime of Bede. It is not written by the
hand which produced the invaluable manuscript itself.
The early lines of it are given above in modern English.

We possess a long and beautiful early poem in
Anglo-Saxon, known as the Dream of the Holy
Rood. It runs to a great length in its complete form,
indeed the only form in which it is found in Anglo-
Saxon manuscript. But it is evident that only the
earlier half is the original poem. The later part has
lost the simplicity of thought and diction of the early
and larger half.

It is of surpassing interest that we have stanzas and
lines of this poem, all from the early part, incised in
bold Anglo-Saxon runes on one of our two greatest
monuments of the early Anglo-Saxon times, the noble
cross at Ruth well in Dumfriesshire, which preserves
for us the earliest piece of Anglo-Saxon poetry, as the
Bewcastle Cross, already mentioned in connection with
King Alchfrith, preserves for us, also in Anglo-Saxon
runes, the earliest piece of Anglo-Saxon prose.

There is much reason for assigning the authorship of

Caedmon and Wilfrith 177

portions at least of the early part of the Dream of
the Holy Rood to Caedmon, specially including the
lines preserved on the Ruth well Cross. Bede tells
us, very frankly, that English people after Caedmon
had tried to write English poetry, but none could com
pare with him. The lines on the Ruthwell Cross are of
the highest beauty and power. Clearly they would
compete with Caedmon's verse if they were not
Caedmon's and if, as seems certain, they were placed
on the Ruthwell Cross in Bede's time, that is, before
731, some fifty years after Caedmon's death. Besides,
some of us have seen Caedmon's name incised in runes
on the top of the Ruthwell Cross. A few words on this
question of date and authorship may fitly find room
here.

In the first place, the poem is a Dream. That strikes
at once the Caedmon note. His poems were dreams,
and we do not know of any other Anglo-Saxon poet
whose verses were definitely avowed to be dreams.

Next, it is certainly, in its most beautiful parts,
simple, and early. Those notes of simplicity and
earliness are very clear when we contrast them with
the later part, with its dwelling on the legend of the
discovery of the true cross, and its tenth-century note.

Then, the insistence on the reality of the suffering
of the Lord on the Cross is highly suggestive of Caed
mon's date. For in his later days the Christian
Church was divided on this very point. So far had
some parts of the Church of Christ gone away from
this reality, that the reality of the sufferings had
become obscured. Shortly after Caedmon's death, a
great Council of the Church was held at Constanti
nople, at which it was decided and ordered that the
Saviour should be represented (pictorially and in

178 The Venerable Bede

sculpture) in His human form, not under the figure of a
lamb. The reason assigned was, that the people might
have their thoughts turned to His Passion and saving
Death, and through His humiliation might learn His
glory. The Dream of the Holy Rood begins with
the preparatory word usual in Anglo-Saxon poems,
as though the reciter had struck a sharp note on his
harp, or uttered a sharp call, to command attention.

List ! A dream of dreams is now my theme.
Twas midnight when the vision met my gaze.

Then follows a glorious description of the beauty of
the Cross adorned with jewels, a beacon of molten
gold. By a rapid transition, the dreamer passes im
mediately to the terrible sufferings of the Lord, and, by
poetic imagination of a high order, the sufferings of the
cross itself. The transition is so sharp that we can
imagine an interruption of the dream of beauty and
splendour of a great golden cross bedecked with jewels,
by the divine messenger's insistent voice forecasting
the council's decree, " Sing, that men's minds may
be turned to the Passion and the saving Death, and
through His humiliation may learn His glory.'* This
is the finest part of the poem, the long-drawn-out
wail of the Cross, compelled to bear its burden. Here
comes in the stanza in the manuscript which is the
main part of the inscription on the Ruth well Cross.
The Cross is still speaking in the dreamer's ear — it
still speaks thus to the eye in the ancient runes at
Ruthwell :•—

Then the young warrior prepared himself.
Twas God Almighty, resolute and strong,
brave in the sight of many. He went up upon
the lofty Cross, to save mankind. I trembled

Caedmon and Wilfrith 179

in his clasp, yet dared not bow nor fall to
earth, I had to stand there firm. A cross
they stood me there, I uplifted the great
King the Lord of Heaven and yet I dared not
stoop. They pierced me with dark nails, you
see the wounds, the open gashes ; I durst harm
no one of them. They scorned us both to
gether. Stained was I with the blood that
streamed . . .

There the runes break off, with fractures of the
stone. In another part they take it up again : —

Christ was on the Cross,
then men came thither, hastening from afar
unto their noble Prince. All this I beheld,
sore pained I bowed me ...

Again a break in the runes ; then : —

wounded with missiles
Him they laid down limb-weary, stood by
His head, they looked upon the Lord of Heaven.

There are still surviving the breaking of the massive
shafts a few runes which show that a very early part
of the poem was also engraved upon the cross, "a
gallows tree but not of shame."

Certain parts of the early stanzas of the poem
which are now to be found in the runes appear to
refer to the erection of the wooden cross by Oswald on
the day of the great victory of Heaven-field in 635,
some forty-five years before Caedmon 's gift of song.
That noble story must have been well known to
Caedmon at the time, and the yearly visit to the field
by the monks of Hexham had naturally kept it fresh
in memory.

On the whole, there is much to be said in favour of

180 The Venerable Bede

the theory that a dream-poem by Caedmon was the first
foundation of the later Anglo-Saxon poem, not later
than the tenth century, the Dream of the Holy Rood.

Plate 15 shows across the top and on the right side
the two and a half lines " Christ was on the cross
... I beheld." And on the left side, " with missiles
wounded . . . they stood."

The Ruthwell Cross gives exactly those points 6f
the poem, and so far as can be judged from its fractured
condition only those parts, which emphasise the
reality and the terrible severity of the suffering.

The Caedmon Cross at Whitby was eminently
successful, as a memorial of the first of the series of
Christian Poets of England, culminating in John
Milton, and was a beautiful example of what modern
skill and knowledge can do. Under the same auspices,
and by the same able designer and workmen, a great
cross was erected in memory of Bede himself. The
concise account which was quoted for the description
of the Caedmon Cross may be completed by adding the
part relating to this second cross.

The Bede Cross is higher still, I think too high,
25 feet. It stands in clear air at Roker Point, the
fumes of chemical works at Jarrow rendering it unwise
to erect it nearer Bede's home. The inscriptions are
in Bede's own words, first his death-song, in Anglo-
Saxon, in runes and in modern English block letters,
and then passages from his writings. I selected these
from his prefaces to the Ecclesiastical History of the
English and the Life .of St. Cuthbert, as an example
of minute care for all writers of history. These are in
the bold script of Acca's Cross. There are busts of
several of Bede's contemporaries, the kings Ecgfrith
and Ceolwulf, bishops Acca and Ecgbert (afterwards

Caedmon and Wilfrith 181

archbishop), abbats Benedict Biscop, Easterwine,
Siegfrith, Ceolfrith of the Codex Amiatinus, and
Huaetbercht ; Trumbercht Doctor, and John Arch
Chanter. There are five bas-reliefs of scenes from
Bede's life. The cross was unveiled on October,
1904, by the Archbishop of York, the Bishop of
Durham taking part in the ceremony. The surface
ornament is beautiful. It comes nearer to a repre
sentation of one of the marvellous pages of the Lindis-
farne Gospels than anything else that can be shown.

Before we pass on to speak of Bede's Letter to
Ecgbert, which comes near the end of his life, we may
note the remarkable silence on Bede's part to which
reference is made on page 118. It follows chrono
logically the point in Anglian history which we have
now reached.

Bede's silence on the main facts and details of the
long struggle of Wilfrith, his expulsions, his appeals to
Rome, is very difficult to explain. It is necessary to
take note of this silence here, but to attempt to deal
with the whole question of his appeals would be
beyond the compass of this work.1 The story in its
entirety is in itself exceedingly interesting, and its
relation by Wilfrith 's friend and chaplain, Stephen
Eddi, many years before Bede's Ecclesiastical History,
is the earliest essay in our Church History by an Anglo-
Saxon writer, and is a good model for later work.
It is to be found in full in the Historians of the Church
of York (Raine, 1879), vol. i.

Bede begins the story of the expulsions by the bald
statement that a discussion arose between King
Ecgfrith and the most reverend prelate Wilfrith,
who was expelled from his bishopric, two bishops

1 See further, Theodore and Wilfrith, G. F. Browne.

182 The Venerable Bede

being put in his place (iv. 13). This statement
suppresses a whole series of most interesting events
which must have been before Bede's eyes in Eddi's
Life of Wilfrith. Wilfrith, by the way, died in the
same year as Aldhelm of Malmesbury and Sherborn,
709, some twenty-five years before Bede's death. The
date of the expulsion of Wilfrith from the see in
which Bede himself lived was 678, when Bede was
about five years of age.

Bede then proceeds to state that on his expulsion
Wilfrith travelled long in many parts and went to
Rome ; that he returned to Britain ; and that
because of the enmity of the king he could not be
received in his own country or diocese (iv. 13). This
suppresses the whole story of Wilfrith's appeal to the
Pope and the decision at Rome in Wilfrith's favour, of
which no notice was taken by the authorities of North-
umbria so far as Bede is concerned. As a fact,
Wilfrith was imprisoned for nine months with great
severity when he presented to the king and the Witan
the decree of Pope Agatho in his favour. The decree
was rejected with contempt, and the Witan declared
that it had been obtained by bribery. Bede eventually
found it necessary to include in the last book of his
Ecclesiastical History a long account (v. 19) of
Wilfrith's life, but even here he does not make any
mention of the presentment of the decree of Agatho
or of the punitive imprisonment. All that he says is
that in the second year of Aldfrith, who succeeded
Ecgfrith, he was restored to his see on the invitation of
the king.

Bede then states (v. 19) that five years after his
restoration he was again accused by the king and
several bishops and was again expelled from his

Caedmon and Wilfrith

183

diocese. He came to Rome, met his accusers, and was
by Pope John and the bishops unanimously declared
to have been falsely accused, and the Pope under
took to write to the English kings Ethelred and
Aldfrith that they should cause him to be admitted to
his bishopric. Ethelred was concerned in the matter
as king of Mercia ; Wilfrith had done invaluable
service in his kingdom on various occasions, and in
that kingdom there was nothing against the much-
harassed bishop. Ethelred, who was presumably
already contemplating the great step he took in the
next year, when he resigned the kingdom and became
a monk, and abbat, at Bardney, a year before
Aldfrith's death, gave a kindly hearing to the Pope.
Aldfrith, Ethelred 's brother-in-law, refused to overlook
Wilfrith 's real or supposed offences, whatever they
were, and would not admit him to his kingdom.
Aldfrith died two years later. His successor was a
boy. A synod was held at Nidd, in the West Riding
of Yorkshire, of which all that Bede says is that
after some conflict of parties they agreed to receive
Wilfrith as ruler of his church, and there he remained
in peace for the remaining four years of his life. Who
they were who came to this conclusion, Bede, who
was about thirty-two at the time, gives no hint. It
was in fact a c(ramatic scene. There were assembled
the young king of Northumbria, and his three bishops,
and the abbats. Elfleda of Whitby was there, Oswy's
daughter, the king's aunt, "always the comforter and
best adviser of the whole province/' Brihtwald, Arch
bishop of Canterbury 693 to 731, was there ; he and
Wilfrith arrived on the same day. The great laymen
were there. Brihtwald and Wilfrith received per
mission to read their letters from the Apostolic See,

184 The Venerable Bede

the sedes Apostolorum. The layman next in rank to
the king, Berechtfrith, rose and said they would like
to know what the words they had heard meant. " The
judgments of the Apostolic See are expressed/' the
Archbishop replied, "in a long round of dubious
words ; but there is the same meaning in both letters."
Either they must restore Wilfrith to parts of churches
he formerly ruled, or all must go to the Apostolic See
and have the matter settled there, or king, layman,
priest, all would be cut off from the Body and Blood
of Christ. The answer was that the whole thing had
been settled by Theodore and Ecgfrith. After that,
at Austerfield almost the whole of the bishops of
Britain in presence of Brihtwald himself had decreed
the like. How could any one alter it ? Then some
new evidence of a sacrosanct character was produced.
A special authority attached to the last word and
testament of a man. Elfleda had been with her
brother Aldfrith when he died. He had, as we have
seen, refused to pay attention to the papal letters.
But on his death-bed he charged Elfleda to tell his son
in the name of the Lord that for the remedy of his
soul he must fulfil the Apostolic judgment, restoring
Wilfrith. Berechtfrith gave judgment accordingly,
informing the Synod that when they were closely
besieged at Bamborough, and were sheltering in a
narrow place in the rock, " we vowed that if God gave
to our royal boy the kingdom of his father we would
fulfil the Apostolic mandates. As soon as our vow was
taken, the hostile forces came over to us ; the gates
were opened ; we were free ; the kingdom was
restored."

There must have been some very grave reason which
coerced Bede into omitting the whole of this.

CHAPTER X

THE EPISTLE TO ECGBERT

The Epistle to Ecgbert — Ecgbert's Pontifical — His royal descent —
Master of School of York — Alcuin a pupil — Alcuin's praise of
him — Bede's advice — More bishoprics — York a Metropolitan See
— The Pallium — Cruel treatment of Leo III — Paulinus not a
metropolitan archbishop — Irregular consecration of Archbishop
Honorius of Canterbury — Carefulness in conversation — The
Pastoral Care of Gregory I — The Lord's Prayer and the Creed in
the vulgar tongue — Subdivision of the diocese of York — Number
of Bishops' Sees— Too many monasteries — Monastic endow
ments for bishoprics — Resident priests in country places — Great
abuses of false monasteries — Evil lives.

ECGBERT, to whom Bede addressed the letter now
under consideration, is an important personage in the
Church of England. He is the first English pontiff
whose Pontifical we possess, the collection, namely,
of forms and services which he used as bishop and
archbishop during his episcopate which lasted from
734 to 766. This book is a possession of inestimable
value. It was published by the Surtees Society in 1853,
from the tenth-century manuscript in the "Imperial
Library, Paris," now the Bibliotheque Nationale.
It is only with a real effort that a writer mentioning it
in this connection deprives himself of the pleasure of
telling something of its fascinating contents. Ecgbert
was a first cousin of Ceolwulf, the reigning king of
Northumbria when he was consecrated, being in the
sixth generation from Ida, the first king of Bernicia.
Three years after his consecration, his cousin Ceolwulf
resigned the sovereignty and became a monk at Lindis-

185

1 86 The Venerable Bede

fame. It was to this sovereign that Bede dedicated
his Ecclesiastical History in the interesting preface
described in Chapter VI. Ceolwulf was succeeded by
his first cousin Eadbert, Ecgbert's older brother.
Alcuin, in his long poem on the Pontiffs and Saints of
the Church of York, describes the happiness of the
time when these two brothers side by side, the one
with the pall on his shoulder sent by the Apostolic,
the other on his head the diadem of his ancestors, the
one wielded the Church's laws, the other ruled the
nation's affairs. Eadbert in turn resigned and became
a monk after a reign of twenty years and was suc
ceeded by his son Oswulf. As we shall see, Bede's
language in the Letter to Ecgbert might be taken as
suggesting that he was not sure that he would in all
respects be an ideal bishop ; but Alcuin 's statements
in the poem to which reference has been made not
only are favourable but cover apparently the whole of
his episcopal work in all branches. He was wealthy,
Alcuin says, and he spent his money generously on the
poor. This he put in the forefront of his panegyric.
We must remember that Alcuin is writing of the head
master of his earliest years at school, as well as of the
archbishop ; he was twenty-one years old when his
master died. Ecgbert, he continues, was a most
illustrious ruler of the Church, an admirable teacher,
venerated by all the people, elect in morals, affable to
the just, very sharp with the depraved, gentle and
severe. He divided nights and days into sacred
portions, assiduously active in prayer in the long
nights. By day he celebrated the sacred solemnities
of Masses. He gave many things for the equipment and
adornment of the Houses of God. He beautified them
with silver, gems, and gold. He gave hangings of silk,

The Epistle to Ecgbert 187

woven with figures, from other lands. He ordained
worthy ministers for the altars, of the various orders,
to celebrate the Festivals of the Thunderer, and others
to sing hymns to the Lord. It is very pleasant to read
this testimony to the success of Bede's very frank
advice to the bishop in his earliest years of office.

Bede, as we shall see, advised that Ecgbert should
put before his cousin King Ceolwulf the advisability
of largely increasing the number of bishops in North-
umbria ; York, and Hexham, and Lindisfarne, and
Whithern, being at that time the only sees. Pope
Gregory had planned for the province of York, as for
the province of Canterbury, twelve bishops and an
archbishop. At that number, Ceolwulf, who would
certainly do anything in his power for the good of the
Church, should be advised to aim ; and then Ecgbert,.
his most dear relative, would receive the pall from the
Apostolic See, and become the metropolitan arch
bishop. It appears that an application was made to
Rome, and the pall was granted, though there was no
increase in the number of Northumbrian sees. The
short " continuation " of the Ecclesiastical History of
Bede has an entry under the year 735, " Ecgbert the
Bishop, having received the pallium from the Apostolic
See, is confirmed to the archiepiscopate, the first since
Paulinus ; and he ordained Fruidbert and Fruidwald
bishops ; and Bede the presbyter died/' These were
bishops of Hexham and Whithern respectively. This
and other entries in this " Continuation " raise
questions of much interest and importance and con
siderable difficulty, on which we must not enter here..

The pallium was continued to York. It seems
curious that Alcuin made so light of it that he did not
mention its having been sought and obtained, he

i88 The Venerable Bede

merely mentions it as worn by his old head-master.
Some sixty or more years later than the receipt of
Ecgbert's pall, Alcuin wrote to Pope Leo III to support
an application for the pall for the newly-consecrated
Archbishop of York, Eanbald II, whose name, curiously
enough, as also the name of his see, he does not mention.
The part of his letter which relates to the pall is as
follows (Ep. 82) :—

" And now as regards these messengers, who have
come from my own fatherland and my own city, to
solicit the dignity of the sacred pall, in canonical
manner and in accordance with the apostolic precept
of the blessed Gregory who brought us to Christ, I
humbly pray your pious excellency that you receive
benignantly the requests of ecclesiastical necessity.
For in these parts the authority of the sacred pall is
very necessary, to keep down the perversity of wicked
men and to preserve the authority of holy church."

That is a remarkably limited statement of the need
for the pall, when we remember the tremendous claims
made in later times. Alcuin is evidently writing in his
most persuasive way to obtain his end, and all he can
say is that to have the pall was bonum et ttfile, good and
useful for the two purposes which alone he names.
The pall came. Three years later, Leo crowned
Charlemagne Emperor.

The letter was written in 797. It is almost im
possible to pass by without comment its reference to
the authority of the Church as backed by the Pope.
We seem to see a great Prince of the Church, serene,
benign, and secure, in all the glamour of imperial Rome,
and all the glory of the presence of the mortal remains
of St. Peter and St. Paul ; crowning kings into
emperors of his own mere will. But between the

The Epistle to Ecgbert . 189

giving of Eanbald's pall and the coronation of Karl,
Leo was set upon in the streets of Rome by the
followers of the nephews of the late pope, who threw
him off his horse and tried to gouge out his eyes and cut
out his tongue. They only half did the work, so the
nephews themselves dragged him into a church, threw
him down before the altar, and set to work to complete
the deprivation of eyes and tongue, which, however,
they did not fully accomplish. Then, having beaten
him cruelly with sticks, they left him weltering in his
blood. After partial recovery he fled to Paderborn,
where very grave charges were brought against him by
messengers from Rome ; these were still under
investigation when he returned to Rome and crowned
the emperor. He died in 816, two years after Charle
magne.

Ecgbert died in 766.

It is strictly correct to speak of Ecgbert as the first
metropolitan archbishop of York. Pope Gregory I
had planned two Provinces for England, a Southern
Province, with an archbishop and twelve bishops, the
metropolitical see to be at Canterbury during Augus
tine's lifetime, at London after his death, and a
Northern Province, with an archbishop and twelve
bishops, the metropolitical see to be at York. So far
as regards the Northern Province, no part of this
excellently desired plan was carried out. Paulinus
was sent as a missionary bishop to York to bring
about the conversion of the southern part of the pro
posed province. He is, or was, usually described as
Archbishop of York, but he never held that position.
He was consecrated at Canterbury, July 21, 625, by
Justus of Canterbury, who, unlike his two predecessors,
had received the pall from Rome ; but he did not him-

190 The Venerable Bede

self receive the pall till after he had fled from North-
umbria never to return ; thus he was never, in the full
sense of those times, metropolitical Archbishop of
York. But notwithstanding the absence of the pall,
Honorius, Archbishop-elect of Canterbury, came north
to him, met him in Lindsey, and was consecrated to
Canterbury, thus traversing the whole theory of the
necessity of the pall. And this irregular consecration
was recognised to the full by the pope of the time,
another Honorius, and confirmed by sending the pall.
Quaintly enough, the pope at the same time sent the
pall to Paulinus, in order that either of the two who
survived might consecrate the successor of the other.
It is a remarkable comment, and from Rome itself, on
the supposed fundamental necessity of the pall. A still
quainter comment is found in the fact that Paulinus
had fled from York before the pall reached him, and
becoming bishop of Rochester wore his pall there as a
personal ornament. Ecgbert was thus the first Arch
bishop of York, Paulinus its first Bishop.

Of Bede's affectionate personal charges to the young
bishop, the most insistent, put in the forefront of the
letter, deal with carefulness in conversation. Either
Bede had reason to think that Ecgbert in his former
position had been careless in talk, or he knew that
such carelessness was common, almost universal in the
ordinary walks of life, among the clergy as among the
laity ; indeed he specially mentions " certain bishops "
who are credited with being grave offenders in this
respect. While Bede on his part had to be very careful
to consort only with those who would keep him
straight if he was inclined to let his tongue run wild,
these " certain bishops " were said to have no men of

The Epistle to Ecgbert 191

religion and continence with them, but rather such as
were given to revellings and drunkenness and other
vices of the careless life. We know a good deal about all
the English bishops of the year 734-5, and we wonder.

Then Bede turns with evident relief to the pastoral
charge of a bishop. Of course he urges the study of
Gregory's Pastoral Care. How little Bede can have
thought when he wrote of this invaluable work, and
when he turned the pages of the book he used so freely,
the " Compendious history of the world by Orosius,"
that a hundred and fifty years after his death, the
greatest of Saxon kings would select these two as two
of the few books he would translate and employ
others to translate into the vernacular English of the
ninth century, and that another of the few books
would be Bede's own Church History of the English.
Ecgbert was to fill his diocese with priests and teachers
who in every village should preach the word and
celebrate the holy mysteries, especially the sacred rite
of baptism. The people, who did not know Latin, were
to be drilled in repeating in English the Apostles'
Creed and the Lord's Prayer ; and not they only, but
the clergy and monks who were ignorant of Latin.
Bede had himself often given English translations of
these fundamental documents to uneducated priests.
What would not an educated priest or bishop give
to-day for one of Bede's little parchment manuscript
copies !

The diocese was too large for one man. Bede had
heard, and it was common report — we may note the
credit Bede not infrequently gives to common report in
those days when the accuracy of memory and of
repetition was so carefully trained in the absence of
literature — that there were country houses and places

1 92 The Venerable Bede

among the mountains and in the forests where for
many years no bishop had been seen, and yet none was
free from paying tribute to the bishop though he never
came near them for the laying on of hands, and not
even any teacher was sent by him to visit them. " My
best beloved prelate, I have written this to your holi
ness, on the calamity under which our race labours,
earnestly entreating you to do something to bring
things to a wholesome rule of life. You have an ex
cellent opportunity. The king, Ceolwulf, is earnestly
religious, you are his near and best-loved relative.
Advise him that the number of bishops must be
increased."

In connection with Bede's strong complaint of the
shortage of bishops, it must be remembered that — as
we now know — there was no parochial system in his
days. The old idea that Archbishop Theodore of
Canterbury (668-690) established the parochial system
in England was founded on a misunderstanding. He
subdivided bishoprics, and as his name for a bishopric,
indeed, the ordinary Anglo-Saxon name in the Latin
lists, was parrochia, usually so spelled in the lists, he was
supposed to have subdivided bishoprics into parishes.

Under our modern parochial conditions, we might
have supposed that considering the sparseness of the
population in those times, the number of bishops
was after all not so very inadequate. There were in
735, the date of the letter, sixteen bishops' sees in
England. Till Henry VIIFs time there were only
seventeen, and of these Ely and Carlisle were of
Norman foundation. The sixteen in Bede's time were,
Canterbury, London, Winchester, Lichfield, Lindsey,
Sherborn, Dunwich, Elmham, Worcester, Hereford,
Selsey, Rochester ; and in the north, York, Lindis-

The Epistle to Ecgbert 193

fame, Hexham, Whithern. While Canterbury has
more than doubled the number of suffragans sug
gested by Pope Gregory, York is creeping up to its
suggested twelve, having now reached the number of
ten. It is to be hoped that another generation will see
the full number of twelve reached and passed. Six
have been added in the lifetime of the present writer,
and seven in the southern province. An Act has been
passed which will add one to each province.

Bede had a complete scheme ready. A great
council should be held. They should aim at com
pleting the number of bishoprics named by Gregory.
York should receive the pallium and become metro
politan. An edict should go forth by pontifical and
royal consent, naming a place among the monasteries
where a bishop's see should be established, for the
foolish donations of preceding kings had so covered
the country with monasteries that there was no vacant
place where a new see could be formed. The abbats
and monks would naturally oppose the scheme. To
obviate that difficulty, licence should be given to them
to choose one of themselves to be consecrated, to rule
episcopally the adjoining country belonging to that
monastery, and to govern the monastery itself. Bede
thought that Ecgbert would easily carry out this plan,
with divine help, and a sufficient number of bishops
could thus be obtained. If a monastery thus selected
had less than sufficient property, there were innumer
able places, as they all knew, where so-called monas
teries existed, the abode of luxury, vanity, intemper
ance of meat and drink, where by synodical action
chastity, temperance, continence, might replace these
ill doings, and the property should be added to the
endowment of the see.

194 The Venerable Bede

Further, there were very many and very large
monastic establishments of which it was commonly
said that they were of no use to God or man. They
neither kept the regular monastic rule, nor supplied
soldiers or officers for the defence of the realm against
the barbarians. If any one were, in accordance with
the necessities of the times, to erect such an establish
ment into an episcopal see, he would do a virtuous
deed. We might be reading a letter from Thomas
Crumwell to Henry Tudor.

It was not only for additional bishoprics that no
lands were left. The kings had no lands to assign to
sons of nobles and to warriors who had served their
country. Having no means of support, such men
either went into foreign parts in search of occupation
or lived idle lives at home and fell into all manner of
evil ways.

Bad as was the state of many of the monasteries,
there was a still worse scandal. Laymen gave money
to kings, and under pretext of erecting monasteries
acquired possessions by royal writ, where they lived
licentious lives. They actually got their edicts con
firmed by the signatures of bishops, abbats, and
secular authorities, as conferring the rights of inherit
ance. They got together outcasts and ne'er-do-weels,
monks and laymen, and filled with them the cells they
had built, and lived riotously. In like manner they
procured lands for their wives, who gathered together
lay women and ruled them as if they were Christ's
handmaids. Well did the common proverb suit them,
that wasps could make combs, but they stored them
with poison, not honey.

Then Bede goes on to say something which would
have cost him his head under a Tudor sovereign. For

The Epistle to Ecgbert 195

the last thirty years, ever since King Aldfrith died,
their province had been so demented with this mad
folly, that there had hardly been one praefect who had
not furnished himself during his term of office with
a monastery of this type, and his wife with another.
This sweeping statement covered four reigns, including
the then King Ceolwulf , who had reigned six years, and
Ceolwulf s older brother who had reigned two years.
The inculpated praefects were no doubt some of them
still living in their sham monasteries.

As to the people outside the monasteries, who were
the special and anxious care of a bishop, Ecgbert must
have much more done for them than had been done.
To take one example, they must be taught how
salutary it was to receive daily the Body and Blood of
the Lord, as was done throughout Italy, Gaul, Africa,
Greece, and all the countries of the East. This teach
ing had been so neglected, that even the more religious
of the laity communicated only at Christmas, Epiphany,
and Easter, though there were innumerable boys and
girls of innocent and chaste life, young men and women,
old men and old women, who without any doubt could
communicate every Lord's Day and on the natal days
of the holy Apostles and Martyrs.

Bede warns Ecgbert that there would be opposition
to the proposed reforms, especially from those who
felt that they were involved in the offences detailed.
Let him remember the apostolic precept, We must
obey God rather than man.

Finally, he had dwelled mainly upon the evils of
monasteries, and against the vice of avarice which
underlay so much of the evil. If he were to dwell at like
length on drunkenness, revellings, luxury, and other
such evils, his letter must reach an immense length.

CHAPTER XI

POETIC WRITINGS

List of Bede's Poems — The Controversy on the Cuckoo — Alcuin's
poem on the Cuckoo — Alcuin's Cuckoo a real person — Bede's
poem on the Apostles Peter and Paul — Aldhelm's verses on
St. Peter and St. Paul — Bede's esteem for Aldhelm — Masses for
the Day of St. Peter and St. Paul — Visits ad limina Apostolorum
— Enigmas of Aldhelm and Alcuin — Alcuin's comb — Bede's
view of the importance of the Psalms — His Psalter now at
Cologne — His Song of Degrees — Alcuin's prominent use of the
Psalms due to Bede.

BEDE'S Latin poems occupy more than a hundred
octavo pages. Four- fifths of them are hexameters, not
very poetic in substance, chiefly metrical prose ; with
some liberties of metre which in his early youth might
have earned penalties if things had been then as they
are now in schools. The bulk of this portion of his
poems consists of (i) the miracles of St. Cuthbert,
(2) the suffering of Justin Martyr, (3) a description of
the seasons of the year. The remaining one-fifth is in
verses of eight syllables each, the favourite metre of
mediaeval hymnology. Bede set an example which
was followed in later times, of sometimes disregarding
the shortness of a syllable and relying upon accent to
lengthen it. Literary critics are divided in our own
times on the question of accent against quantity in
English verse. Some at least of Bede's poems in short
lines are intended to be chanted or intoned in church
as hymns. Thus the second part of a long poem on the

196

Poetic Writings 197

Nativity of St. Andrew is noted as to be " said " at
the Cross, this second part having sixty-two lines of
eight syllables. A study of these hymns informs us or
reminds us of the continuity of words and phrases in
ecclesiastical hymnology . Time after time we come upon
words and usages familiar to students of the charming
" sequences " of mediaeval Masses which came after
his time. It is evident also that Bede used the orna
ment of rhyme when it came naturally, especially the
rhyme of the concluding syllable of a hexameter with
a pause syllable in the middle of the line ; but the
rhymes in his long lines are only occasional. As we shall
see, he wrote a long poem in short rhyming lines.

The short-line hymns are on (i) the universal
Works of God, (2) the Natal Day of the Innocents
(very pretty), (3) the Ascension of the Lord, (4) the
Natal Day of St. Agnes, (5) the Nativity of St. John
Baptist, (6) the Apostles Peter and Paul, (7) the
Passion of St. John Baptist, (8) the Natal Day of the
Holy Mother of God, (9) the Natal Day of St. Andrew,
(10) the Second Part of the same.

There is also one short poem of fifty-five hexa
meters, which gives us what we should like to have
more of, a glimpse of the lighter side of our dear
lovable Bede. It takes the form, so well known to
such a student of Latin and Greek as Bede was, of a
set controversy between Spring and Winter. It has
to be allowed that the poem may have been wrongly
attributed to Bede. It is more like the work of a
generation which had been brightened and lightened
by the genius of Alcuin.

The controversy related in this poem turns on the
cuckoo. We may gather that the cuckoo was a
great favourite in Northumbria. Two generations later,

198 The Venerable Bede

our famous Yorkshireman Alcuin gave the name
Cuculus (cuckoo) as a pet nickname to a dear friend.
Bede sets before us a gathering of shepherds from the
hills, under a tree shadeful with early leaves. They were
come to celebrate the Muses ; the youthful Daphnis
was present, and the elder Palaemon. All were pre
pared to sing the praises of the cuckoo. Spring enters,
with a fillet of flowers, and winter, bristling with
frosted hair. These two engage in a great contest on the
subject of the cuckoo. Spring begins, with three
hexameters, — Would that my cuckoo would come, the
dearest of birds, most welcome guest to all, modulating
songs with his red beak. — Winter rejoins that he won't
have the cuckoo come ; let him go on sleeping in
dark caves ; he's always a nuisance when he comes. —
Spring repeats his eagerness for the arrival of the
cuckoo, to drive away the colds of winter ; always the
friend of Phoebus ; Phoebus loves the cuckoo. — Winter
won't have him come ; he brings labour in the fields,
he renews war, he breaks up loved repose, he disturbs
everything, he makes labour on land and sea. — O
tardy Winter, Spring replies, why do you sing attacks
on the cuckoo, you, heavy with torpor, covered up in
dark caves, after the feasts of Venus, the cups of
foolish Bacchus. — I have riches, Winter replied,
joyous f eastings, sweet rest, warm fires. — But, retorts
Spring, the cuckoo brings flowers, ministers honey,
builds houses, navigates placid waters, begets off
spring, clothes the happy fields. — I, rejoins Winter,
hate everything you rejoice in. I love counting over
my money in the chest, feeding well, with plenty of
rest. — You slow thing, Spring cries, always ready to
sleep. Who piles up wealth for you, who gathers
together your money, if no Spring or Summer does the

Poetic Writings 199

work ? — Quite so, Winter replies, feeling that his turn
has come, quite so, Spring and Summer in all their
work serve me, they are my slaves, I am their lord. —
Nay, Spring asserts, you are not their lord, you are a
mere pauper to those lofty ones. You couldn't even
feed yourself, if the cuckoo, who will surely come,
didn't provide you with food. — Then Daphnis and
Palaemon intervene. Winter's sixth retort is cut off.
Palaemon gives a reasoned judgment. " Say no more,
atrocious Winter. Let cuckoo come, the dear friend of
shepherds. Let sweet herbs spring on the hills,
pastures for cattle, peace in the cornfields, leafy shade
for weary labour, let the she-goats come to the milking-
stool with full udders, and birds of many notes salute
Phoebus. That this may be so, come, cuckoo, come
quick, thou sweet love, thou guest most welcome to
everyone. All things are waiting for thee, sea and
earth and sky. Hail to thee, cuckoo, sweet delight,
for ever hail ! "

Chaucer gives us a charming controversy between
the Cuckoo and the Nightingale, which shows us that
the six and a half centuries from Bede's verse to his
had gone altogether against the Cuckoo. The long
controversy, fifty-eight stanzas of five long lines, turns
upon points of love, not on questions of voice and song.
The Cuckoo has the worst of it because he is a bad
character, so bad that he stirred up the poet in his
dream to dismiss him in a summary manner : —

Me thoght then that I stert out anon,
And to the broke I ran and gate a ston,
And at the Cockow hertely I cast ;
And he for drede did flie awey full fast,
And glad was I when that he was gon.

In itself, this specimen of Bede's poetry need not,
perhaps, have been given in full. But it supplies us

2OO The Venerable Bede

with a rather striking example of continuity in Anglo-
Saxon — or, more correctly, Anglian — literature. It
will be noted elsewhere that Alcuin copied phrases
and whole lines of Latin verse from the West Saxon
Aldhelm, who died at an advanced age in 709, a whole
generation before Bede, three generations at least
before Alcuin. Alcuin in turn owed much to Bede, and
naturally studied his writings, whether history or
homily or verse. He has a long elegiac poem on the
Cuckoo. This would not be a very likely coincidence
of an accidental character, and there is internal
evidence that Alcuin was working on this poetic
account of the grave controversy on the cuckoo. Bede
introduced a senior character, Palaemon, and a junior,
Daphnis. Alcuin introduces a senior, whose name is of
the same syllabic construction, Menalcas, and a junior
of the same name as Bede's junior, Daphnis. Alcuin
gives us the same question, Will the cuckoo come ?
But under that name he is writing of a well-loved friend,
who is so far as he knows lost to him. Menalcas and
Daphnis were real persons, whose names we do not
know. Menalcas was a poet, in charge of the royal
table ; Daphnis was a pupil of Alcuin, to whom he
addressed part of his exposition of the Canticum
Canticorum, Solomon's Song. It would appear that
this friend, Cuculus or Cuckoo, had been a very
favourite companion, of a jovial and tuneful character,
with a will too weak to resist the temptations to which
such a character is liable. But it seems impossible to
make Alcuin 's lamentations on the absence of the
cuckoo suit the case of the disciple whom Migne's
editor supposes to be referred to here. That disciple
is the subject of two long and very sad letters, the one
urging a change from gross moral evils by the example

Poetic Writings 201

of a fellow-student now a bishop, the other urging
change for fear of Gehenna. It can hardly be that the
much-loved cuckoo was the man to whom Alcuin
wrote thus : — " Why have you broken with the father
who from infancy trained you in liberal discipline and
in morals, and furnished you with the precepts of
perpetual life ? Why have you joined yourself to
troops of harlots, gatherings of drinkers, the vain
things of pride ? Are not you he who in budding man
hood wert laudable in the mouth of all, lovable in the
eyes of all, desirable in the ears of all ? Alas ! Alas !
You are now reprehensible in the mouth of all,
execrable in the eyes of all, detestable in the ears of all.
Drunkenness and wantonness have done it all."
Probably Alcuin 's reference to Bacchus in his poem
has given the idea to the editor, but it will be remem
bered that the poem which is credited to Bede and
must have been in Alcuin 's mind, makes Spring name
the goblets of Bacchus, foolish Bacchus, as a usual
occupation of Winter.

A few of Alcuin 's elegiac lines on the cuckoo run
thus : —

Let us mourn for our cuckoo, Menalcas and Daphnis,

Ah me ! how the cuckoo sang sweetly to us.

Never perish the cuckoo ! he will come back in spring,

And coming will sing us the songs of his joy.

Ah me ! what if Bacchus has drowned our dear cuckoo !

That impious Bacchus who seeks to destroy.

Let us mourn for our cuckoo, mourn all for our cuckoo.

Send verses to cuckoo, send verses of sorrow,

It may be our verse will bring cuckoo again.

May he alway be happy wherever he be

May he think of us ever, and ever fare well.

It can scarcely be a mere chance that Bede's last
word is Salve ! and Alcuin 's is Vale /
Bede does not hint at any knowledge of the careless

2O2 The Venerable Bede

conduct of the cuckoo mother, or the selfish conduct
of the cuckoo poult. Alcuin's poem has three expres
sions which are or may be in point. He attributes the
loss of his friend Cuckoo to the action of a savage step
mother. He begs Cuckoo to return to warm nests ("a
warm nest " would have fitted the Latin verse equally
well), and hopes the crow will not tear him with fierce
claw. And he asks — Who tore thee from the paternal
nest ? — a curiously mal d propos manner of saying that
the mother didn't sit the egg. All through, the cuckoo
is the victim, as though in those days the mother-
errant chose large nests of fierce birds, instead of
small nests from which the young could be squeezed
out by the growing poult.

In Chaucer's dream the Cuckoo was a powerful bird.
When the poet had driven him off with a stone : —

Than spake o bird for all, by one assent,
" This matter asketh good avisement,
For we ben birdes here in fere,
And sooth it is the cuckow is not here,
And therefore we woll have a parliment.
And thereat shall the egle be our lord,
And other peres that been of record,
And the cuckow shall be after sent,
There shall be yeve the judgement,
Or els we shall finally make accord."

It was not to Alcuin and his immediate companions
alone that the friend called by them Cuculus or
Cuckoo was dear. .The Archbishop of Salzburg, Arno,
the most important of Alcuin's non-royal correspon
dents, wrote thus (Ep. 287) : " To the very dear bird
the Cuckoo, the Eagle [Arn is an eagle in North-
umbria] sends greeting. I have dipped my pen in love
to write this letter. Rise, rise, most pleasing bird. Go
higher, never lower. Let your friends, the angelic digni
ties, hear your voice. Your voice is sweet to them."

Poetic Writings 203

Alcuin employed Cuculus as his messenger to Arch
bishop Eanbald of York. Diimmler, the joint editor
of the Monumenta Alcuiniana, feels sure that the
Cuckoo's real name was Dodo, there being two or three
men with that bird-name in those times. But we have
a letter of Alcuin to Dodo his pupil, and there is
nothing in it which seems to fit the case of the Cuckoo.
Alcuin definitely says that he " took him as a pupil
late and speedily dismissed him. That savage step
mother the flesh had snatched him by the whirlpool of
lust from the paternal breast." At the same time it is
curious that he uses here two of the expressions which
he applied to the case of his lost Cuckoo. Also it is a
fact that this letter is three years later than the letters
in which he writes of his friend as his messenger, so
there had been time for a man given to wine to fall
very low.

It seems probable that the Cuckoo's actual name
was like that of some bird, for he is spoken of as a bird
in the letters, apart from the mention of the Cuckoo.
We must hope that the learned Diimmler, when he tells
us he is sure that Dodo — to whom Alcuin wrote — was
the student in question, did not imagine that Dodo was
the name of a bird in Anglo-Saxon times. The now
extinct Dodo of Mauritius was only discovered in 1507
by the Portuguese, who named it Doudo (simpleton)
from its silliness. Linnaeus named it Didus ineptus.
The German equivalent would be dumm.

To return to the short-line poems of Bede, we
naturally find one dealing with the Apostles Peter and
Paul. The Abbey of Monkwear mouth, in which Bede's
earliest days of boyhood were spent, was dedicated to
St. Peter ; Jarrow, in which all of his days from
budding youth were spent, was dedicated to St. Paul.

2O4 The Venerable Bede

He combines these two chief princes of the Church of
Christ in one poem of ninety-two eight-syllable lines,
" Of the Apostles Peter and Paul." He strikes the
note of equality at the very beginning : —

The glory of the Apostles

Let us sing in due verse,

Barjona Simon Peter

And the dear teacher of the Gentiles.

It is needless to say of Bede, or of his predecessor in
date Aldhelm, that we shall not find the Petrine claim
in their writings. Rome was in their eyes the Apostolic
See because it was the death-city and the sleeping-
place of the two great martyrs. Bede makes this very
clear in the closing lines of the poem under considera
tion, as we shall see. He also makes it very clear in
the opening lines of his long poem on the Miracles of
St. Cuthbert, when he speaks of the several parts of the
earth made illustrious by the presence of apostles and
other great teachers. He speaks first of Rome, and all
he says of it is : —

Rome, delighting in the splendour of Peter and Paul,
Will ever live rejoicing in the trophies of the Apostles.

In his poem on the two Apostles, he skilfully states
the parallel claims of the two chiefs, parallel rather
than equal, with no note of superiority or inferiority ;
he gives the palm to each in his own sphere. Both,
he says, drew by their teaching the various errors of
the nations to the grace of truth. The sacred Prince
of the Church saw Jesus in the Mount and heard the
voice of the Father from the fiery sky ; Paul ascended
to the third heaven of the bright pole and heard
hidden things which it is not lawful to utter to any
other. The steps of Cephas on the waves are aided by
the right hand of Christ, who raises his own that they

Poetic Writings 205

be not drowned in the sea of the world ; Paul showed
that the dangers of the world can be overcome by the
faith of them that believe, when he saved from the
waves his shipwrecked companions. Simon draws
the faithful from the lowest depths of the world, to set
the good fishes free ; Paul teaches the just inhabiting
the earth to dwell in safe camps, by his making of tents
like camps. The shadow of Simon passing by raises
the sick, cleanses the leper, makes the lame to walk ;
the dear Master of the Gentiles, full of power, puts to
flight the evil spirits and every disease by his hand
kerchiefs. Peter, desiring to follow the footsteps of
Christ, fears not to come to Him by the cruel ladder of
the Cross ; Paul enters the palace of the everlasting
realm by the sword, for who fears God gladly gives his
head to the block. Thus the Princes of the Church,
thus the true lights of the world, by noble triumph over
death received the palm of glory ; whose illustrious
trophies happy Rome now contains, whose crowns the
circuit of the whole world celebrates.

Reference was made above to the West-Saxon Aid-
helm, — St. Aldhelm, as his canonisation by Arch
bishop Lanfranc made him. He was older than Bede
by a full generation, and was a marked man at Malmes-
bury before Bede was born. Bede knew his writings,
for he used one of Aldhelm's lines on Judas Iscariot,

Culmen Apostolic! celsum perdebat honoris,

and half a line from his verses on St. Thomas Didymus,

Coeli qui sceptra gubernat.

Aldhelm wrote a short poem, in twenty-one hexa
meters, on the new and larger church which he had
built in the sacred enclosure of Malmesbury in honour
of the Saviour and the chief Apostles Peter and Paul.

206 The Venerable Bede

In the collected works of Aldhelm (J. A. Giles, Oxford,
1844) the poem is said to have been written on enter
ing the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul at Rome ;
what church that may have been we cannot say.
But William of Malmesbury, who knew if any one
did know all about the Malmesbury churches, gives
the account as above ; he describes the Apostles
Peter and Paul as Primi Apostoli or Primi Aposto-
lorum, the chief apostles. This is what Aldhelm
himself says of them : —

" Here in this fair place Peter and Paul, the lights
of a dark world, the chief Fathers who guide the reins
of the people, are venerated in frequent song.

Key-bearer of heaven, who openest the portal of
the upper air, and unclosest the white realms of the
Thunderer of the skies, mercifully hear the vows of the
people who pray, moistening the dry ground with
showers of tears. Accept the sobs of those who groan
for their offences, who burn up with fragrant prayer
the sins of their lives.

Lo ! thou greatest Doctor, Paul, called from the
heavens Saul, now with changed name Paul, when
thou didst aim at setting the Old Law above Christ,
and after darkness didst begin to see the clear light ;
open now benignant ears to the voice of them that
pray, and as their guardian stretch forth with Peter
thy right hand to the trembling ones, who flock to the
sacred thresholds of the church ; that here may be
granted continuous indulgence of offences, flowing from
abundant piety and the fount on high which never
through the ages grows sluggish for men of worth."

Another of Aldhelm 's poems might be expected to
throw even further light upon this question of the
relative importance of the two avowed and recognised

Poetic Writings 207

Chiefs of the Apostles, the two in whose joint names a
Papal Bull must to this day run if it is to be valid. The
poem referred to is described as "On the Altars dedi
cated to the blessed Mary and the Twelve Apostles,"
presumably in the Basilica on which he has a poem
with a delightful description of the church and services,
and with the first mention of an organ in an English
church. But this poem has no distinguishing refer
ence of the kind ; it describes the labours and the
sufferings of each of those to whom altars were dedi
cated. Thirty-six hexameter lines are given to
St. Peter, and thirty-six to St. Paul, as also to St.
James the Lord's cousin. Next in order of number
comes the Virgin Mary. Aldhelm names St. Paul
second in the list and St. Matthias last, omitting Judas
Iscariot, and having thus dealt with thirteen apostles
he concludes by saying, " I have now gone through the
twelve names of the Fathers."

William of Malmesbury has preserved for us yet
another poem comparing and contrasting the merits
of the two Princes of the Apostles. Writing at
Malmesbury in the twelfth century, about 1130, he
tells us that King Ina built a church at Glastonbury
and dedicated it to the Saviour and the Apostles Peter
and Paul. We know from another source that this
work was undertaken on the advice of Ina's relative,
Aldhelm. William adds that Ina set up an inscription
in Latin elegiacs which still existed in his time. We
know of no one in those parts who could write them
then, other than Aldhelm. It may be well to give an
English rendering of this inscription, for to some not
inconsiderable extent Bede was a student of Aid-
helm's writings, of which he speaks in high praise.
He mentions particularly " a notable book of his on

208 The Venerable Bede

the errors of the Britons in not celebrating Easter at
the right time and in doing several other things not
consonant to the purity and the peace of the Church.
Also an illustrious book on Virginity, which after the
manner of Sedulius he duplicated, writing it in hexa
meters and in prose. He wrote other books also, being
a man most learned in all branches, writing in a clear
style, wonderful for both liberal and ecclesiastical
erudition." It is of importance to press this connec
tion of Bede with Aldhelm's writings, for we have then
the connection of Alcuin with Bede's writings, and
thus we can point to Alcuin as the final power of the
great English trinity of learning, Aldhelm, Bede, Alcuin,
covering by their lives the period from 635 to 804.

The substance of ten lines of the remarkable inscrip
tion referred to is as follows, Paul being named first : —

Two gates of the heavens, two lights of the wide world,
Paul thunders with voice, Peter lightens from the sky.

The one loftier in degree, the other more learned in teaching.
The hearts of men are opened by the one, the stars by the

other ;
Whom the one teaches with the pen, the other receives in

the pole.
The one opens the way to heaven with doctrine, the other with

keys ;

To whom Paul is the way, to him Peter is the trusty gate.
The one remains the firm stone, the other is the architect.

Against the hostile torch two bulwarks rise,

The city the head of the world has these as its towers of
strength.

The view of the equality of the two Princes of the
Apostles which Aldhelm and Bede held was supported
by — probably was based upon — the earliest Masses for
the Day of St. Peter and St. Paul. We may fairly take
it that in writing their hymns on the relative merits of
the two Apostles, they were expanding the details of

Poetic Writings 209

the Mass for their day. As an example, we may take
parts of the very early Mass which was probably
current in England at their time. The Collect is as
follows : 0 God, whose right hand raised the blessed
Peter, walking on the waves, so that he should not
sink, and saved from the depth of the sea his co-
Apostle Paul when shipwrecked for the third time,
mercifully hear us, and grant that by the merits of
both we may attain to the glory of eternity : who with
God the Father, etc. The Secreta is as follows : —
We offer unto Thee, Lord, prayers and gifts ; and
that they may be worthy of Thy sight, we beseech the
help of the prayers of Thine Apostles Peter and Paul,
through, etc. The Post-communio : — Protect, O Lord,
Thy people, and preserve with perpetual defence
them who trust in the patronage of Thine Apostles
Peter and Paul, through, etc.

Or we may turn to the very early French Mass in
the so-called Missale Gothicum, where the Oratio is that
the holy Church throughout the world may ever be
governed by the mastership of these two, through
whom it received the beginning of the Christian
religion. The Collect invokes the patronage of the two
Apostles. In the Immolatio Missae we have just the
kind of comparison that Aldhelm and Bede make.
Paul was made blind that he might see, Peter denied
that he might believe. To the one the keys of the
heavenly kingdom were given, to the other the skill of
bringing the Gentiles ; the one brought them in, the
other opened ; both therefore received eternal rewards.
The one was raised by the right hand of the Lord when
sinking in the water, the other was saved when ship
wrecked a third time. The one overcame the gates of
hell, the other the sting of death. Paul's head was

2io The Venerable Bede

smitten off because he was the head of faith to the
Gentiles, Peter followed on the cross in the footsteps of
Him who is Head of all.

It is said to be impossible to prove a negative ; and
there are many cases in which that is true, literally.
In the present case, it does not appear that these great
ancestors of ours recognised in St. Peter a Bishop of
Rome, or recognised in him a supremacy over St. Paul.
The continual balancing of the one with the other is a
strong evidence against the existence in their minds of
any such views. They had nothing in Scripture or in
earliest history to balance against St. Paul's long and
close personal connection with the imperial city ; nor
have we.

It is a mere commonplace to say that Bede describes
the frequent visits to Rome of the English of his time
and of earlier times as visits to " the thresholds of the
Apostles," not " of the Apostle," ad limina Aposto-
lorum. The Sedes Apostolica was the Sedes Aposto-
lorum to Bede's trained mind, not the Sedes Petri
alone or supremely.

Of one class of versification in which Alcuin and
especially Aldhelm rejoiced, Bede has not left any
example, the JEnigmata, Enigmas. We have ninety
of Aldhelm's Enigmas, more than 750 lines in all.

The absence of Enigmas from Bede's writings is no
great loss, if we may judge from the specimens of
Aldhelm's and Alcuin 's efforts in this kind of work.
Here is one of Aldhelm's : —

Once was I water, full of scaly fish.
My nature changed, by changed decree of fate.
I suffered torments torrid by the flames,
My face now shine like whitest ash or snow.

The answer is salt, produced by boiling sea water.

Poetic Writings 21 1

Alcuin preferred tricks with the letters of words : —

As evil you treat me yet gladly you eat me

And changing my vowels you mount me and beat me.

The answers are, malum, evil ; malum, an apple ;
mulam, a mule.
Or again : —

I'm a power and a charm of the highest degree,
And every man born is but one-half of me ;
The other half burns when in worship you fall ;
Let me part with one letter, I can poison you all.1

The answers are, virtus, virtue, power ; vir, a man ;
tus, frankincense ; virus, poison.

As an example of the playfulness and the typical
affectionateness of an early Anglo-Saxon scholar, we
may take one of Alcuin 's Latin riddles, transferred into
modern English : —

A beast has sudden crept into my house,
A beast of wonder, who two heads has got,
And yet the beast has only one jawbone.
Twice three times ten of horrid teeth it has.
Its food grows always on this body of mine
Not flesh, not fruit. It eats not with its teeth,
It drinks not. Its open mouth shows no decay.
Tell me, Damoeta dear, what beast is this ?

We have the letter to Damoeta, that is, Riculf
Archbishop of Mainz, in which Alcuin acknowledges
the gift of this formidable creature : —

" I am much delighted with your loving present,
and I send you as many thanks as it has 'teeth. It is
a wonderful animal, with two heads and sixty teeth,
not of elephantine size but of the beauty of ivory. I
am not terrified by the horror of this beast, but

1 " Sex mihi litterulae sunt et praeclara potestas
Disrumpis nomen medio de tramite totum
Pars colet una Deum, hominem pars altera signa
Littera tollatur faciet mox quarta venenum."

212 The Venerable Bede

delighted by its appearance ; I have no fear oi its
biting me with gnashing teeth. I am pleased with its
fawning caresses, which smooth the hair of my head.
I see not ferocity in its teeth, I see only the love of the
sender."

We can imagine the beauty of this ivory comb
with one row of sixty teeth, the solid piece at the top
being ornamented at each end with a lion's head
looking outwards. A hundred years later, the comb,
if made in Northumbria, might have had two bears'
heads, the muzzles looking inwards along the ridge.

This no doubt was the comb which wrought so
many miracles in cases of acute pain after the death
of Alcuin, as described by the biographer who wrote
from personal knowledge soon after his death.
" Father Sigulf, while performing the last offices for
the body of the deceased abbat, had a great pain in his
head. Raising his eyes above the couch of the master,
he saw the comb with which he was wont to comb his
head. Taking it in his hands he said, ' I believe, Lord
Jesus, that if I combed my head with this my master's
comb, my head would be cured at once by his merits.'
The moment he drew the comb across his head, that
part of the head which it touched was immediately
cured, and thus by combing his head all round he lost
the pain completely." He might have echoed his
master's words, " I love its fawning caresses."

We may fairly claim Bede as the source from which
Alcuin derived his exalted idea of the practical value
of the Psalms in prayer. Indeed, we can go further
than that, for Alcuin wrote to Arno, the Archbishop
of Salzburg, after the year 798, to the following effect.
"He was sending to him a little handbook, manual,
containing much on divers matters, short expositions

Poetic Writings

213

of the seven penitential psalms, of the n8th Psalm
(our iigth), and of the fifteen psalms of degrees. In
this little manual," he says, "there is also contained
a small psalter, called the Psalter of the blessed
Presbyter Beda, which Beda put together, with sweet
verses in praise of God and prayers from the several
psalms and very beautiful hymns, one especially
noble hymn in elegiac metre on Queen Etheldreda.
Also Beda's hymn on the six days of creation, and the
hymn on the six ages of the world. Also an old hymn
on the fifteen psalms of degrees, and prayers." This
actual " little book/' with a full description of its
contents and the assignment to Bede of all the parts
which follow the mention of his name, has been found
in the Cathedral Church of Cologne, where its class-
mark is cod. 106.

We have Bede's Psalter, and the hymns named,
and the prayers, in Dr. Giles's edition of Bede in
twelve volumes already referred to. They are given
in the first volume, pages 221-245. The Psalter
occupies nineteen octavo pages. It is a gathering of
verses of the Psalms of a comforting and prayerful
character, beginning with the first verse of the first
psalm, Beatus vir, our " Blessed is the man that hath
not walked in the counsel of the ungodly," and ending
with the last verse of the last psalm, Omne quod spirat,
our " Let everything that hath breath praise the
Lord." In all, about three hundred verses of the
Psalms are selected for this interesting purpose.

We have also Bede's Canticum graduum, Song of
degrees. It is placed by Dr. Giles among the " Moral
Works," volume i., pages 239-241, not among the
poems, and so is liable to be overlooked by anyone
who desires to read this pretty example of his poetry.

214 The Venerable Bede

This Canticle he forms on the fifteen psalms of degrees.
It consists of fifteen stanzas of four eight-syllable lines,
rhyming in couplets. Each is taken from the first
verse of one of the fifteen psalms of degrees, extended
to form a stanza, and altered to make rhymes. Thus,
taking the first verse of Psalm 126, " When the Lord
turned again the captivity of Sion, then were we like
unto them that dream," in the Latin, In convertendo
Dominus captivitatem Sion, facti sumus sicitt consolati
(Jerome, somniantes), Bede's stanza runs : —

In convertendo Dominus
Captivitatem protinus
Sion, satis in omnibus
Consolati nos fuimus.

That is, ' when the Lord turned again the captivity of
Sion forthwith we were in all things consoled/ Tate
and Brady were forestalled by Bede. Bede's six
teenth stanza prays the Father of power and the
Prince of knowledge that by these thrice five steps he
may be able to mount to the heavens.

We have also the prayers which are part of the
contents of the hand-book. It should be added that
with the Cologne MS. there is a copy of the letter of
Alcuin to Arno from which we have quoted. This is
fair evidence that the Cologne Codex is the actual
hand-book, as indeed its contents make clear.

It is well to note how Alcuin acted in the use of the
Psalms, having this direct lead from Bede in his hands
and in his mind. A contemporary biographer informs
us that Alcuin taught Karl, whether Charlemagne or his
son Karl who died three years before him we do not
know, which of the Psalms he should sing throughout
his whole life for various occasions ; for times of
penitence, with litany and entreaties and prayers ;

Poetic Writings 215

for times of praising God ; of any tribulation ; and for
his being moved to exercise himself in divine praise.
The biographer adds that any one who wishes to know
all this, may read it in the* little book which he wrote
to Karl on the principles of prayer.

This little book is Epistle No. 244 in Wattenbach
and Diimmler's Monumenta Alcuiniana. Its first
words state that King David gave us a rule " for
singing psalms," and Alcuin's instructions show that
he meant the Psalms to be chanted, in private as well
as in public use. He himself on his death-bed sang the
evangelical hymn to the Virgin Mary, with the Anti-
phon, 0 clavis David et sceptrum domus Israel, and
then chanted the Psalms " Like as the hart," " O how
amiable," " Blessed are they," " Unto Thee lift I up,"
" One thing have I desired," " Unto Thee, O Lord,"
and others of like kind.

In the little book under consideration, Alcuin
arranged three courses of Psalms for the night and
seven for the day, and then passed on to explain, in
accordance with a special request from Karl, the order
in which a layman in active life should pray to God
at the stated hours : —

" When you have risen from your bed, say first ' O
Lord Jesus Christ, son of the living God, in Thy name
will I lift up my hands, make haste to deliver me.'
Say this thrice, with the psalm ' Ponder my words, O
Lord, consider my meditation. O hearken Thou unto
the voice of my calling, my King and my God, for unto
Thee will I make my prayer. My voice shalt Thou
hear betimes, O Lord, early in the morning will I
direct my prayer unto Thee.' Then, ' Our Father,'
and the prayers ' Vouchsafe, O Lord, to keep us this
day,' ' Perfect my steps,' ' Praised be the Lord daily,'

216 The Venerable Bede

' Direct and sanctify/ ' O Lord, let Thy mercy lighten
upon us/ Then, rising, begin the verse ' Thou shall
open my lips, O Lord/ When that is ended, with
the Gloria, begin the psalm ' Lord, how are they
increased/ Then follows ' God be merciful unto me/
Then, ' O come let us sing unto the Lord/ Then
psalms, ,as many as you will."

Thus, through our own Alcuin, our own Bede
taught and sang to Austrasians and Neustrians alike,
the Franks on both sides of the Rhine, and England
profoundly influenced not private life only but also
the choral parts of the services of the Mass. And who
can say how much of the fundamental position of the
Psalms in the religious phraseology and the religious
thought of our own race is due to the constant work
of Bede and of Alcuin, twelve and eleven and a half
centuries ago.

CHAPTER XII

THE SCIENTIFIC WORKS OF BEDE

On the Reckoning of Times — Interest of the subject — Indication of
numbers with the fingers — Anno Domini — Dionysius — Telli-
graffs — On the Nature of Things — Bede's indebtedness to
Isidore — Bede and Isidore in Paradise — Isidore's indebtedness
to others — Why the sea is salt — On the rainbow — On Mount
-<Etna — Agostoli — Have stars a soul ? — On thunder and thun-
derings.

ONE volume of the twelve of Dr. Giles's edition of
Bede's works is devoted to his scientific treatises.
These are treatises on Orthography, on the Art of
Metre, on the Schemes and Tropes of Holy Scripture,
on the Nature of Things, on Times, on the Counting
of Times.

The treatise on the Counting or Reckoning of Times
is by far the bulkiest of the treatises. It occupies more
than two hundred octavo pages. The history of its
production is interesting in itself, and it speaks well
for our early Northumbrian ancestors. Bede was
supported and encouraged in his many labours by the
interest and keenness of his companions in the
monastery. We learn this from the treatise on the
Reckoning of Times. He tells us in the preface that he
had written in concise language two small books, one
on the Nature of Things and the other on the Reckon
ing of Times. These he had put into the hands of some
of the brethren, and they had told him that they were
too brief, especially the one on Times. He believed

217

218 The Venerable Bede

that the desire for a longer treatise on Times was due
to their special interest in the calculation of Easter.
This longer treatise, he says, he had now written, and
he submits it to them. One general remark he makes
in the preface, — he has taken the chronology of the
Hebrew Scriptures, not that of the Septuagint. That
this was right he says in a delightfully firm manner, —
" It stands my fixed opinion, and I assert that no
prudent person will gainsay it." In these modern
times of ours, the reviewers would speculate upon the
particular colleague at whom he was aiming. We may
perhaps acquit Bede and each and all of his colleagues of
that suggestion.

The first chapter is devoted to an explanation of
the method of showing numerals, numbers, with the
fingers. One example may be given, selected because
of the pretty way in which it is put by Bede and the
still prettier way in which Jerome put one detail of it
in writing of the hundredfold, sixtyfold, and thirty fold
fruits of the sower's seed. You join, Bede says, to
show " thirty," the nails of the index finger and the
thumb in a caressing embrace. Jerome says that the
" thirty fold " refers to marriage, because the con
junction of the digits, clasping and binding in a soft
kiss, indicates the husband and wife. To show
" sixty," the thumb is bent and the index finger is bent
over it. This, Jerome says, the " sixtyfold," refers to
widows, oppressed with want and sorrow, the thumb
pressed under the index finger. To show "a hundred "
("I beg you attend diligently, Reader," says Bede),
you use the right hand instead of the left — he has not
said that thirty and sixty are shown on the left hand —
and make the circle with the same digits ; that shows
the highest and best state, virginity. We naturally

The Scientific Works of Bede 219

find in Bede's writings various applications of these
numbers, so suggestive of culminating merits.

Bede commences the treatise itself with the obvious
explanation that the Latin word for " times " (tempera)
is derived from a verb which means " to divide into
portions " (temper o). It may be of some interest to
add that our words " time " and " tide " come from
a Teutonic base meaning " to divide/' " apportion."

It is in this treatise that Bede introduces into use in
England the method of counting time to and from the
Incarnation of Christ. He tells his readers that a
certain venerable abbat of the city of Rome, Dionysius
by name, a man with no mean skill in Greek and
Latin,1 found that chronologers were calculating years
from the date of Diocletian. Dionysius was writing
on the calculation of Easter, and was unwilling to
count his cycles of years, in a calculation dealing so
closely with the Incarnation of the Lord, from the
date of an impious and persecuting tyrant. He there
fore chose the Incarnation itself as the event from
which his calculations should count. Dionysius
published his cycle in the year 527, beginning with
March 25, the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin. It
is from this epoch that the dates of bulls and briefs
of the Popes are supposed to run.

In this connection, we may quote the latest authori
tative statement on the subject of the gradual intro
duction of this method of dating. Dr. Reginald L.
Poole writes thus, in a paper on " Imperial Influences
on the Forms of Papal Documents" (Proceedings of
the British Academy, vol. viii). "Though the system
of reckoning from the Annus Domini was devised as

1 It may perhaps be inferred from this that Bede was aware of
the fact that Dionysius Exiguus (the lowly) was a Scythian.

22O The Venerable Bede

early as 525, it was not till just two hundred years had
elapsed that it was brought into currency by the
publication of the Venerable Bede's treatise de Tem-
porum Ratione. From that time it became an
established element in the dating of charters in
England, but in England only. It passed "to the
Continent by the means of Anglo-Saxon missionaries
and scholars. St. Boniface took it with him into the
Prankish kingdom, see Carloman's capitulary of
21 April, 742. But it does not appear to have been
regularly employed in the Royal Chancery until the
last quarter of the ninth century, from which time it
became a fixed element in diplomas. The Popes never
adopted it till after the Imperial coronation of Otto
the Great in 962."

The English synod of Chelsea in 816 ordained, it is
said, that all bishops should in future date their acts
from the Incarnation. This detail is taken from its
context and so appears to be of more direct import
ance than in fact it is. The gth decree of the Synod of
Celchyth ordered that acts of synods should be put
down in writing in due order, stating in what year of
the Lord they were passed, under what archbishop,
and so on. The general force appears to be that the
Anno Domini date was a matter of course, if a date
was given at all, being in common use, not that the
decree ordered the use of this method of dating. It
may be mentioned in passing that the 7th decree of
this synod ordains that monasteries shall have in
possession their telligraffs. That very modern -sound
ing word is a hybrid formation to represent the Anglo-
Saxon Land boc, in other words, their title deeds.

The treatise on the Nature of Things is the most
interesting of the Scientific Works of Bede. It cannot

The Scientific Works of Bede 221

fail to be interesting to see what our ancestors twelve
hundred years ago thought of the phenomena of
nature. Those phenomena were very carefully
observed and noted in those far-off days, and deduc
tions were made from them by long experience, and
were handed down by tradition and improved upon.
They had a larger share of attention then than now,
nature being then a much more uncontrolled power
than now. The original commission given to man by
the Almighty Creator, to replenish the earth and
subdue it, has been acted on with results which are
vastly beyond the utmost imaginings of the most
imaginative genius of that distant age with which we
are dealing ; as also has the commission which gave
dominion over the fish of the sea and the fowl of the
air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the
earth.

A great deal of Bede's learning in subjects other
than historical and theological did not come from
research, for which indeed there was in his time but
little scope. It came mostly, in many cases in bodily
bulk, from Isidore of Seville, a man of astonishingly
general knowledge, who was not as good a Latin
scholar as Bede was. This very remarkable man
became Bishop of Seville in 601. His merits, Professor
William Ramsay said, are but imperfectly acknow
ledged when he is pronounced to have been the most
eloquent speaker, the most profound scholar, and the
most able prelate, of the barbarous age and country to
which he belonged. His numerous works display a
marvellous amount of knowledge, of necessity in that
age superficial and of necessity inaccurate considering
the subjects which he treated, covering almost every
branch of learning known even by name in those

222 The Venerable Bede

times. If we compare Isidore's forty-seven short
chapters on the Nature of Things with Bede's fifty-
two short chapters under the same name, we find
them both equally incapable of giving any approach
to a correct explanation of thunder, earthquakes, the
rise and fall of the Nile, and other physical phenomena.
But we must remember that when twelve centuries
had passed from the time when Isidore became bishop,
the whole world was in ignorance of the true explana
tion of many of the phenomena with which he dealt.

We owe to Dr. Plummer's delightful volumes on
Bede the reference which shows us Bede and Isidore
next each other in Paradise : —

Vedi oltre flammegiar 1'ardente spiro
D'Isidoro, di Beda (Parad., x. 130, 131),

and the remark that Dante wrote of Bede to the
Italian Cardinals as one of his subjects of study.1

While we refer much of Bede's scientific work to
his direct use of Isidore's writings, it is necessary to
state that Isidore in turn used directly the writings of
Ambrose, and he in turn the real or supposed work of
Dionysius,2 a man of very large range of knowledge in
the time of the earliest Caesars. Hyginus, too, is quoted
by name, another writer of the time of Caesar, of whom
Suetonius in his lives of illustrious grammarians tells
us that he was a freedman of Augustus, and had
charge of the Palatine Library. It has been remarked,
and it is a pregnant remark, that in spite of all the
overthrow of the vast empire of Rome by the bar
barians, with devastations which are being repeated
in our own time by barbarians of even worse character,

1 Plummer, I, xli., note 4.

8 Dante mentions Dionysius and St. Gregory in connection with
the De Coelesti Hierarchia, Parad, xxviii. 126.

The Scientific Works of Bede 223

the learning of the Augustan age not only was not
blotted out, but was eagerly retained and handed
down by the races who had counted among the
barbarians themselves. Isidore was a Goth by descent,
Dionysius the humble a Scythian. It was a repetition
of the Graecia capta.

Sharon Turner goes further than that. He says of
Bede's book on the Nature of Things that it "has
two great merits ; it assembles into one focus the
wisest opinions of the ancients on the subjects he
discusses, and it continually refers the phenomena of
nature to natural causes. The work of Bede is evidence
that the establishment of the Teutonic nations in the
Roman Empire did not barbarise knowledge. He
collected and taught more natural truths, with fewer
errors, than any Roman book on the same subjects had
accomplished. Thus his work displays an advance,
not a retrogradation of human knowledge ; and from its
judicious selection and concentration of the best
natural philosophy of the Roman Empire, it does high
credit to the Anglo-Saxon good sense/'

Isidore was quite frank on the subject of his in
debtedness. He quotes directly from Origen, Victor-
inus, Ambrose, Jerome, Cassian, Augustine, Hyginus,
and " especially in our own times," he says, " from the
eloquent Gregory." Quod ego loquor, illi dicunt : vox
mea ipsorum est lingua (" I speak what they say : my
voice is their tongue ").

One or two examples of the scientific argument
which Isidore takes from previous writers and Bede
takes from Isidore, and of the manner in which Bede uses
the work of Isidore, will be of interest to the reader.

Isidore, Chapter 42, Why the sea has salt water.
The learned doctor Ambrosius says, The old philo-

224 The Venerable Bede

sophers say that the sea has salt and bitter water
because a large quantity of water from many rivers
daily flows into it and is caught up by the heat of the
sun and the blasts of the winds, as much being thus
taken up each day as each day flows in. They hold
that the sun has a power of selection, and takes up to
itself what is pure and light, leaving behind what is
heavy and earthy and what is bitter and undrinkable.

Bede, Chapter 41, Why is the sea bitter. They
say that the sea remains salt though so many rivers
and so much rain pour into it, because the sweet and
light liquid, which is very easily attracted by the
force of fire, is drawn out by the sun, while the harsher
and thicker fluid is left behind ; and thus the upper
part of the sea water is sweeter than that below. But
the aliment of the moon is of sweet waters, as is that
of the sun.

Here Bede appears to have been caught by Isidore-
Ambrose's idea that the sun selects drinkable water,
and so unluckily adds a remark of his own about the
food of the moon.

Isidore, Chapter 31, On the Bow, and Bede, Chapter
31, On the Bow of Heaven. They agree that the rays
of the sun are impressed on a cloud and give the form
of a bow, as a ring is impressed on wax. Isidore says
that the roundness of the sun causes the circular form
of the bow. Isidore says that the bow never appears
without sun and cloud ; Bede says that it appears
more seldom in summer than in winter, and seldom at
night, when it is only seen at full moon ; that is a
very interesting addition, considering the great rarity
of a lunar rainbow. They agree that the rainbow is of
four colours, and they agree as to the causes of this.
The colour of fire, red, is taken from the heaven ;

The Scientific Works of Bede 225

purple from the waters ; white (Isidore) hyacinthine
(Bede) from the air ; black (Isidore) grass-colour (Bede)
from the earth. Bede, who does not follow Isidore
in quoting Clement of Rome, and omits most of his
physical argument, does not give a word of his alle
gorical notes. The bow, Isidore says, shining from the
sun in the clouds, represents the glory of' Christ
shining in the prophets and doctors ; others say that
two of its colours, the purple from the waters and the
fiery from the heaven, set forth, the one the destruction
of the impious long ago by the deluge, the other the
future burning of sinners in the infernal regions.

Isidore, Chapter 46, On Mount Mtna, and Bede,
Chapter 50, The burning of Mtna. Here Bede uses the
actual phrases of Isidore. They agree that the
interior is composed of sulphur and bitumen, and that
internal blasts of wind fight against the internal fire
and so force out from the mountain smoke and
vapour and fire. They agree that the ^Eolian Islands
— that is, the Lipari Isles, near Sicily, understood by
the ancients to be the abode of ^Eolus the god of the
winds — have much to do with the eruptions of ./Etna.
The clashing of the waves drives the winds down to
the bottom, and there they are kept captive till they
make their way through the breathing-holes of the
land, and in this way they fan the flames in the
interior of -£Etna, and now and then are so powerful
that masses of sand (Isidore), sand and stones (Bede),
are cast up. It is these showers of sand and stones
that keep up the bulk of ^Etna ; but for them it would
have been burned away long ago. To them and to the
jEolian Islands it is due that the burning lasts like the
fires of hell ; that is all that Bede says of the similitude
of hell ; it is characteristic of him that he does not

226 The Venerable Bede

follow Isidore in his remarks, which are much more
drastic. The fire of .Etna, Isidore says, lasts as the
fire of hell lasts perpetually to punish sinners, who
shall be tortured to all ages, world without end. The
mountain goes on blazing and can never be put out,
and so the eternal flame for torturing the bodies of the
damned can never be extinguished. There are little
touches in Bede's treatment which indicate literary
taste. Thus Isidore says that the internal blasts of
wind drive out of the mountain flame and vapours and
smoke. Bede gives the more natural and correct form,
an ascending series of vigour, the smallest and most
frequent being mentioned first, smoke, vapours, flame ;
and he adds an accurate piece of information, that
these indications break out at many places on -<Etna.

In connection with this strange theory of air being
forced down to the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea
by storms of wind, and then blowing as it were the
bellows of volcanoes, it may be well to mention a
remarkable fact. At Agostoli, in Cephalonia, the
Mediterranean sea is always pouring down into a
chasm, working mills on its way down, and going no
one knows where. Modern science has suggested,
curiously enough, that it finds its way to fissures,where
the rock is at a great heat, and being converted into
steam helps to produce eruptions.

Bede had a sound instinct which led him to avoid
some of the speculations of those who had gone before,
whom in so very many parts of their work he was
thankful to follow. Besides words and ideas in the
course of their attempts at explanation of physical
phenomena which do not appear in Bede's quotations,
he sometimes goes further than that. Thus Isidore
has one curious chapter, No. 27, which Bede omits

The Scientific Works of Bede 227

entirely, on the question, Have stars a soul ? Isidore
tells that it is wont to be asked, as the holy Augustine
says, whether Sun and Moon and Stars are nothing
but material bodies, or have spirits of their own,
which rule their course as animals are animated — the
phrase is Isidore's — by an anima or soul. Some such
cause there must be of their observed conduct, he
thinks, for they move in such wonderful order and
proportion that they never go wrong.

Bede's treatise on Thunderings, if it be Bede's, is
very remarkable, both for what it contains and for
what the author fears he may have to suffer for
acceding to a friend's request to write it. Of Thunder
itself he and Isidore had of course written. Bede
declares (ch. 28) that Thunderings are generated by
the clashings of clouds, driven by the winds which
are conceived among them, this violent clashing
producing a noise like that of chariots rattling over
the stones as they rush forth from the stables. The
treatise on the Presages of Thunder is a very different
affair. It is full of the erroneous views of the time,
which an age of more knowledge calls superstitious, a
fate the future may have in store for a good many of
the views of the present time, to specify or indicate
which, in this volume, might raise the " howls "
which Bede felt that his treatise would be sure to raise.
In order to shelter himself so far as he could against
hostile "howls," he keeps himself personally clear, in
a very marked and curious manner, of responsibility
for any one of the statements of presage which appear
in his book. His anxiety is evidently real and great.
He is clear that the work is open to the " howls " and
blasphemies of hostile critics, who may assert that he
had thought out and uttered new presages of events

228 The Venerable Bede

in a diabolic spirit ; or puffed up with dwelling on the
art of magic and not illuminated by the grace of the
Holy Spirit ; or in a mere rhetorical spirit, as though
his friend Herefrid, at whose request the treatise was
written, had bid him foretell the future with prophetic
mouth. Three points should be noticed. He tells
Herefrid that he has translated the work into Latin,
which suggested that he is putting into his book the
common sayings of the people of the time. He does
not name any one of the persons whom he describes in
extravagantly complimentary terms ; in our flippant
times they might well be pungently ironical. And he
does not say by whom he is so sure to be abused for
writing the treatise. Herefrid was probably his friend
at Lindisfarne, not a member of Jarrow, for he begs
in his defence the shield of the prayers and the anchor
of the holy speech of Herefrid and his faithful followers.
There is evidently something serious in the back
ground, at which it is more or less idle to guess.

The actual request addressed to him by Herefrid
was, that he would collect the opinions of learned
writers on the events which thunder foretold accord
ing to the day of the week, the month, etc., of its
occurrence. He gives the received presages for the
four winds, the twelve months, and the seven days
of the week ; and in every case, without exception, he
expressly states that he only gives an account of
what others have discovered. The shifts to which
he is put to vary his phrases are amusing. Twice,
and twice only, he contents himself with the remark,
"as they say." For thunder with an east wind,
which signifies " the copious effusion of human blood,"
he quotes " the traditions of subtle philosophers."
For thunder with a west wind, signifying "a very bad

The Scientific Works of Bede 229

pestilence/' he quotes " wise men in their exceeding
subtlety actively investigating the presages of events."
For thunder with a south wind, signifying " a great
destruction of the inhabitants of the seas/' he quotes
" philosophers of sagacious disposition, who, by
intellectual study and great prudence, have noted the
presages of events/' For thunder with a north wind,
signifying " the death of the worst sinners, viz.
pagans and perverts," he relies upon " the subtlety of
those who have taken in hand to investigate the causes
of events/' Through the twelve months of the year
he rings the changes on the activity, subtlety, and
sagacity of the philosophers. By the time he comes
to the end of the seven days of the week he is in
extreme straits for something fresh to say. For
thunder on Friday, signifying " the slaughter of the
king," or " a mighty war with much slaughter," he
quotes, " the noble teachers who almost from the
cradle have been fed and nourished on the breast of
maternal Philosophy, their intellects adorned by most
careful and acute contemplation, and the varied
flowers of philosophic subtlety." And for thunder on
Saturday, signifying either " a mighty pestilence," or
" a very great war," he quotes the " philosophers, who
with practised knowledge, according to the excessive
ardour of their most sagacious disposition, have
attempted to discern by subtle intellectual speculation,
the causes and presages of events." The whole treatise
might be a satire upon the folly of those who believed
that natural phenomena were prophetic of remarkable
events in such a manner that their presages could be
tabulated. The fact that some of the coincident
presages are of the most contradictory character, would
seem to point in the same direction. Thus, if thunder

230 The Venerable Bede

came on one of the Tuesdays in January or November,
it signified, by coming on a Tuesday, most copious
abundance of fruits of the earth, and by coming in
January, that fruits of the earth would fail, or in
November, that there would be barrenness of every
thing. And the presages are so arranged that there
are only twenty-nine days in the whole year on which
thunder can mean anything really good, and on those
twenty-nine days it is subject to the presages of the
wind, which, as will be seen from the wind portents
given above, might considerably discount the amount
of good. It seems difficult to suppose that the writer,
whether Bede or not, believed the presages which he
describes. He must have known that observation
failed to support the tradition. It is very unlike the
simple direct character which Bede's known works
enable us to realise in him, that the writer should give
no hint of his sense that the presages practically failed
to come true. The treatise is not mentioned in Bede's
own list of his works, and those who love him cannot
bring themselves to believe that he wrote it.

CHAPTER XIII

THE COMMENTARIES AND HOMILIES OF BEDE

His method as a preacher — His method as a commentator — An
example from Acts ii. — The Song of Solomon — Ambiguities of
the Latin language — Bede's dedications of his commentaries —
Bishop . Acca — Celibacy — Answers to Nothelm — The wood
worm — The lion in the pit — The Virgin Mary — The Two Sacra
ments — ^Elfric's homily — Bede outside his monastery — Anoint
ing with oil — Confession — Purgatory — The vision of Drythelm —
Figurative interpretations — Bede sung as a heretic — The parable
of the Good Samaritan.

THE Homilies of Bede which have been preserved
are in one sense disappointing ; they throw little or
no light upon the state of society in his time. There
is no approach to anything at all resembling the
personal interest of which the sermons of Chrysostom
are so full. There is no rebuking of notorious sinners,
no sarcastic scourging of fashionable follies and
vices. The reason of this is obvious, even if we
overlook the difference between the two. men. Chry
sostom preached in a great metropolis, full of luxury
and dissipation. Bede read theological lectures in a
quiet monastery, where he seems to have had no
vices to rebuke, or where, if vices there were, he
rebuked them tenderly in private. His Homilies
reflect the quietness and confidence of the faithful
Christian student, addressing a body of his brethren in
good works and in a God-fearing life.

Like others of the early preachers, he supports his

231

232 The Venerable Bede

statements with texts of Scripture more often than is
usual in the present time. The Bible was of course
very much less familiar to ordinary people then than
it is now ; indeed it was not familiar at all. There was
instruction in Christianity to be found in the quota
tion of texts possibly novel to some hearers even in
a monastery which was a famous seat of learning.
Many points of doctrine were much less assured then ;
they needed support from every quarter where it
could be found, and no support was so good as that
which was derived from apposite texts of Scripture.

There is a singular absence of rhetorical attempts
in these Homilies. It would seem never to have
been Bede's intention to work upon the feelings of
his hearers by impassioned words. He said what he
meant to say clearly and simply, and he left it to its
own inherent force to make its way. It would be
difficult to find, in the sermons of Bede, passages
dwelling in vehement terms upon the horrors of hell
and the happiness of heaven. Threats and profuse
promises are no more parts of his teaching than are
invective and sarcasm parts of his style.

As a rule, Bede took a passage of some considerable
length, one of the lessons for the day, for example,
and went through it verse by verse, expounding
rather than preaching. He frequently insisted upon
the special doctrines which centre round the Incarna
tion, such as the two natures of Christ, and upon the
relation of the Persons in the Blessed Trinity. Such
themes suited him better than the more practical
subjects which are fitted for those preachers who
are conversant with the world and have a mixed and
secular congregation to address. It is to be feared
that many of Bede's sermons would be stigmatized in

The Commentaries and Homilies of Bede 233

these days as " doctrinal," or, by those who say more
distinctly what they mean, as " dull/'

There is very little indeed of criticism of the text
in Bede's sermons. He takes it as he finds it, and he
expounds it. This is only what might be expected
in those early days ; but from a theological student
and scholar like Bede we might, perhaps, have ex
pected more reference to the Greek text and to the
manner in which the Latin text in use represented
it. In some cases where the Greek has a special
emphasis which the Latin has not, Bede's remarks take
no account of the emphasis in the original. As an
example of his textual criticism — there are very
few examples indeed in his sermons — the passage
in St. Mark " He came into the parts of Dal-
manutha " may be cited. On this Bede remarks
that St. Matthew has " Magdala." He thinks that
the same place is intended by the evangelists, for
" many codices " have " Magedan " in St. Mark
instead of " Dalmanutha." It may be noticed as
typical of Bede's method of preaching that he makes
no point of the emphatic ye in John iii. 7, " Marvel
not that I said unto thee, ye must be born again,"
though the emphasis of the word is brought out in the
Latin text as well as in the Greek original.

Bede's method as a commentator was very different
from his method as a preacher. His commentaries are
voluminous. Those on the Old Testament fill 1338
octavo pages, and those on the New Testament 1250.
In these days of critical study of the Holy Scriptures
in the original languages, it is interesting to observe
the manner in which he used the Greek of the New
Testament in writing his commentaries. The Bible
which was in the hands of his readers and hearers was

234 The Venerable Bede

of course the Latin Bible. Bede did not treat this as
later writers treated it, as being sufficient in itself. He
was careful to point out omissions, and to warn his
readers against mistranslations into which the Latin
might lead them if they were not warned. Thus, to
take half a chapter as an example, on Acts ii. 20,
" the sun shall be turned into darkness," he tells
them that though the Latin might suggest " dark
nesses/' it was only because the Latin word had no
proper singular ; the Greek word, which he gives in
his commentary, shows that the correct translation
is " darkness." On Acts ii. 23, " Him, being delivered
by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of
God, ye have taken," where the Latin omits " ye
have taken," he informs his readers that a very im
portant word is omitted in their Latin version, very
important because the Jews had the choice between
the robber and Jesus, and they took Him. Again,
in the 30th verse of the same chapter, "that of the
fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, He would
raise up Christ to sit on his throne," where the Latin
omits " according to the flesh, He would raise up
Christ," he points out that there is more in the Greek
than in the Latin, and tells them what should be
added. Similarly in verses 33 and 34 he notes differ
ences between the Latin and the Greek. On verse 41
he remarks that while the Latin text on which he was
commenting seemed to say that all who gladly received
the word were baptized, another manuscript gave more
correctly the true force of the Greek, limiting the state
ment to the particular individuals who heard the word
on that occasion.

The uncial MS. of the Acts known as E is believed
to have been the actual manuscript used by Bede. It

The Commentaries and Homilies of Bede 235

has a Latin rendering (not the Vulgate) in addition to
the Greek text. It was given to the University of
Oxford by Archbishop Laud, whence its name Laudi-
ensis.

Alcuin's quotations from Solomon's Song, the Song
of Songs, Canticum Canticorum, are numerous. Its
impassioned beauty of language and joyousness of
thought appealed powerfully to the secular side of his
complex temperament. How much of his attachment
to the book is due to Bede we cannot know. It is
sufficient to say that Bede's Commentary on its eight
chapters fills 218 octavo pages, a bulk exceeding the
amount of commentary on much longer books of
Scripture.

The preface to this Commentary is specially inter
esting to us because it warns the reader to be very
cautious how he read a work on the same subject by
Julian of Campania, Bishop of Celanum (?). This
Julian was a very able and learned man, with a
pleasing and powerful style, who began his manhood
in affectionate intimacy with Augustine of Hippo and
Paulinus of Nola, the latter of whom wrote an epi-
thalamium on his marriage when he held the office of
Reader. He afterwards became very earnestly in
favour of Pelagianism, on which account Bede
describes him as the sharpest impugner of the Grace of
God next to Pelagius. He played the largest part in the
controversy under more than one Pope and through
a long series of years, apparently retaining his charm
of manner and his deep earnestness ; but evidently
writing many things he had better not have written,
especially in his treatise De Amore, On Love, in which
he made so much use of the love-song of Solomon.

On one point Bede was very careful to warn the

236 The Venerable Bede

readers of his commentaries. He constantly pointed
out the ambiguities caused by the want of an article in
the Latin. Thus on Acts i. 6, " Wilt thou at this time
restore again the kingdom to Israel ? "(restitues regnum
Israel?) the Latin gives no hint to enable a reader
to determine whether he shall translate it " restore
the kingdom of Israel," or " restore the kingdom to
Israel." Bede tells his readers that the Greek article
decides the question in favour of the latter. Another
source of ambiguity in the Latin is found in the fact
that some words are the same in all genders. Thus in
the words cum Maria matre Jesu et fratribus eius, in
the I4th verse of the same chapter, "with Mary,
mother of Jesus, and His brethren," the Latin leaves it
open to any one to translate " and her brethren,"
against which translation Bede gives a warning. And
so, too, to take one more example from the same part of
the Scripture, in Acts ii. 3, " there appeared unto
them cloven tongues, as of fire " (linguae tanquam
ignis), the Latin may be rendered " cloven tongues,
as it were fire," where Bede informs them that in the
Greek there is no ambiguity, the form of the genitive
being different from that of the nominative, whereas
in the Latin they are the same. An instance of another
kind is found in the next verse, " began to speak in
other tongues " ; here the Latin has " in various
tongues," but Bede corrects the translation, and says
that it should be " other." From these numerous
examples, taken from so small a portion of Scripture,
it may be imagined how careful and close was Bede's
study of such manuscripts as he possessed. We feel
that we are in the hands of a man who, at least so far
as the desire to be accurate is concerned, may be
trusted either as commentator or as historian.

The Commentaries and Homilies of Bede 237

We find some interesting evidences of the working
of Bede's mind in his prefaces to the Commentaries on
the several books of Scripture. We may take as an
example his dedication of the Commentary on the first
book of Samuel, which he heads with the title " An
allegorical Exposition." It is addressed to Acca, the
Bishop of Hexham, one of the two noble cross-shafts
at either end of whose grave we have in our time
rescued from the various places where its fragments
used to rest and have set up in the Dorter at Durham.
He addresses Acca as the best-loved and most desir
able of all the bishops then living. It is evident from
this and other like sayings of Bede, that he had a very
warm affection for him as a man, and a very high
respect for him as a bishop. This makes still more
unintelligible the fact that Acca was driven from his
bishopric in 732, and as we have seen, Ecgbert conse
crated Frithubert as his successor in 734. It cannot
have been any grave misdoing on his part which
caused the loss of his diocese, for when he died in 740
he was buried at the east end of the church at Hexham
and two stone crosses of very large size and of wonder
fully skilful carving were set up at the ends of the
grave.

To Acca Bede wrote on a very personal line in this
particular dedication. In explanation of his reason for
giving an allegorical turn to his commentary, he points
out that the man Elkanah had two wives, Hannah and
Phenenna, the Septuagint form of Peninnah. " Now,"
he puts it to Acca, " we two are by the custom of
ecclesiastic life far from the embrace of a wife and
remain celibate. We therefore are specially bound to
extract some allegorical meaning from this fact of the
two wives, which shall chasten, instruct, and console

238 The Venerable Bede

us." This accounted for Bede's determination to make
his commentary allegorical. Elkanah, one man with
the two wives, was the Redeemer and the Ruler of
Synagogue and Church alike. Peninnah, with the ten
children, was the Synagogue with the ten command
ments and the numerous progeny, Hannah was the
Church, desolate and in long waiting. Elkanah 's
comforting appeal to her, Am I not dearer to thee
than ten children ? was the appeal of the Church,
more loving and more loved than the Synagogue.

In his dedication of the Commentaries on the book
of Genesis to Acca, he first states his authorities, from
whom he has obtained the materials for his two books.
They were Basil of Caesarea, Ambrose of Milan, and
Augustine of Hippo. Their works were so copious and
high (alta) that only the rich could acquire them, and
so deep (pro/undo) that only the learned could under
stand them. Therefore it was that his holiness had
bid him pluck from the loveliest plains of this wide-
flowering Paradise (park) that which might seem to
suffice for weaker brethren.

We have a quaint dedication of answers to thirty
questions sent to Bede by Nothelm the Arch-priest of
London, that is, of St. Paul's. Nothelm has been
mentioned already as a main source of Bede's know
ledge of the affairs of the earliest period of the Southern
Province. These thirty questions Bede describes as
the graver questions among many sent to him, the
others having been answered briefly in a schedule
already sent to Nothelm. It must be allowed that a
good many of the thirty are not in themselves of a
grave character. Bede clearly saw that this was so,
and he takes great pains to explain away any hint of it.
He tells Nothelm that there were very many passages

The Commentaries and Homilies of Bede 239

more obscure, but he knows that a man who has read
and understood the explanations of great writers often
finds himself doubtful about less obscure passages
which the great writers had not thought it necessary
to explain.

An example of a laboriously patient explanation
may be found in the greatly disputed passage 2 Samuel
xxiii. 8, where in place of the words " Adino the
Eznite " the Vulgate has the statement that the
Tachmonite was like a very tender wood-worm. Bede
begins his answer by mentioning that in the parallel
passage i Chronicles xi. u, the name of the hero
is given. He was not concerned with the passage
beyond the question of Nothelm. This was fortunate
for him. If any one wishes to feel really puzzled, he
can obtain his wish by reading these two passages in
the Authorised and Revised English Versions, in the
Latin Versions, and in the Septuagint, to say nothing
of the several Hebrew readings. The passage in
2 Samuel has been correctly called one of the most
disputed passages in the Bible. Of this Bede knew
nothing. He called attention to the parallel passage,
and then simply answered Nothelm 's question. He
explains this curious description of a mighty man of
valour by pointing out that the most tender wood
worms can in the course of time so eat away the
substance of the very strongest beam of wood that it
becomes rotten. Jerome arrived at the "very tender
wood-worm" from the words rendered "Adino the
Eznite" in the Authorised Version, "Eznite" being
near the Hebrew word for " wood."

In 2 Samuel xxiii. 20, he has to explain for Nothelm
the statement that Benaiah went down and slew a
lion in a pit in time of snow, where the Vulgate has

240 The Venerable Bede

cisterna in the place of "a pit." How this was done,
Bede says, Josephus tells more clearly. The hole was
not very deep, and in time of much snow it was filled
up and the surface was level with the whole area of
snow-covered ground. The lion was passing over it,
unconscious of the danger, and fell in. Finding him
self caught he set up a mighty roar, which brought
people to see what was the matter. Benaiah came
among others, and seeing what it was he jumped
down into the hole, attacked the lion with his sword,
and slew him.

He speaks in terms of the highest respect of the
Virgin Mary, as blessed above all women. But he
goes no further than that. His manner of speaking
of her may be gathered from a remark which he
makes in preaching on one of the festivals in her
honour. A most excellent and salutary practice, he
says, has long been established in the Church, that
her hymn (he is speaking of the Magnificat) is sung
by all every day at vespers. The object and use of
this practice he believes to be that the continual
commemoration of our Lord's Incarnation may incite
us to deeper devotion, and the recollection of the
example set by His mother may strengthen us in
virtue. He is careful to explain that the expression
" first-born son " — " she brought forth her first-born
son " — in no way implies that there were other child-,
ren born later ; and he maintains the theory of the
perpetual virginity of the Virgin Mary so strenuously
that he prays God to avert from his hearers the
blasphemy of holding otherwise. Of " Mariolatry "
there is no sign in Bede's Homilies. In the Ecclesi
astical History, Bede relates that Bishop Wilfrith
was told by the Archangel Michael, in a vision, that

The Commentaries and Homilies of Bede 241

the prayers of his disciples and the intercession of the
Virgin Mary had moved the Lord to grant Wilfrith
a recovery from a dangerous illness.

There are frequent references to the two great
Sacraments of Christ, Baptism and the Supper of the
Lord. But there is a rather marked absence of any
homily on one or other of these subjects specially.
It would have been very interesting, and it might
have been instructive, to read what Bede thought
and taught in detail on these cardinal points of
Christian faith and practice. His method of homi-
letic exposition was such that his views were stated
rather incidentally and in passing, than in any very
full and formal manner : we find nothing like an
elaborate treatise on these and similar points. His
mention of the validity of Baptism in the name of
the Holy Trinity, by whomsoever administered, is a
good example of this. He is preaching on the visit
of Nicodemus to Christ, and in commenting on the
words of the master in Israel, " How can a man be
born when he is old ? " he remarks that the same is
true of spiritual birth, a man cannot be born again.
" No one who has been baptized in the name of the
Holy Trinity, even though by a heretic, a schismatic,
or an evil person, may be rebaptized by good Catho
lics, lest the invocation of so great a name be an
nulled." In the case of a notoriously ignorant baptizing
priest, Bishop John of Hexham had had to order him
to desist from baptisms, and repeated the rite. Passing
allusions to the necessity of Baptism will be men
tioned when we come to speak of Bede's figurative
interpretation of the parable of the Good Samaritan,
and of the miracle of the Four Thousand. In another
place, speaking on the words of St. Mark vii. 33, " He

242 The Venerable Bede

spit, and touched his tongue," Bede says that from this
passage a custom prevalent in his time grew up, the
priests touching in like manner the nostrils and ears of
those whom they were about to present for Baptism,
saying at the same time the word Ephphatha. The
touching of the nostrils he understood to be a sign that
thenceforward they should be a " sweet savour of
Christ " (2 Cor. ii. 15) ; and he urges all who had
received the rite of consecration by Baptism, and all
who were about to receive it at the forthcoming season
of Easter, to avoid all occasion of falling back into that
from which Baptism washed them. In this passage
he speaks at some length on the subject of Baptism,
and its cleansing power; and it is perhaps rather
remarkable that he makes no reference to the ques
tion of original sin. In another homily he repeats
his reference to the practice of baptizing at Easter ;
" rightly do we on this night " — the commence
ment of the festival of Easter — " hallow to the
one true God in the font of regeneration the new
people of His adoption brought out of the spiritual
Egypt."

To the Sacrament of the Supper of the Lord the
references in the Homilies are frequent and most
reverential. English readers not familiar with the
usual names of things in early times must not be
surprised to find that Bede uses the ordinary name
Missa, the Latin word represented by " Mass," to
describe the celebration of this Sacrament. In King
Alfred's time, " mass-priest " was the accepted designa
tion of officiating clergy in Priest's Orders. In speaking
of this Sacrament, Bede uses stronger expressions than
he might have done had he known what controversies
would rage round almost every word that could be used

The Commentaries and Homilies of Bede 243

in connection with it. He uses words well known in
Eucharistic controversy, to a greater extent than he
uses controversial words in speaking of Baptism. And
the reason for this is clear. Our Lord Himself used
words as strong as any that can be used, when He said,
"This is My Body," "This is My Blood"; and any
language framed on these two statements must seem
strong, however free it may be in fact and in intention
from any element of materialism. This is not true of
the language used in baptismal controversy. But while
it is true that Bede uses words which a cautious
writer of the present day might avoid using in public
utterances, because of the misconceptions to which
his use of them might possibly give rise, it is at least
as true that we search in vain for any sign of a belief
on Bede's part in the doctrine of transubstantiation.
It is so well known that transubstantiation did not
appear as a doctrine till long after Bede's time, that
it may seem unnecessary to remark that no sign of it
is found in Bede. Since, however, some of his ex
pressions have a recognised force in modern contro
versy, it is not out of place to preface a mention of
them by some such caution.

In the passage quoted above from Bede's Homily
on the Eve of the Resurrection, after mentioning the
Easter rite of baptism, he proceeds as follows : —
" and rightly we celebrate the solemn Mass, we offer
to God for the advance of our salvation the holy
Body and precious Bbod of our Lamb, by whom we
have been redeemed from our sins." And in another
place, speaking of the " manger " of Bethlehem, he
says, " He chose the manger, to which animals came
to feed, as His resting-place, foreshadowing the re
freshing of all the faithful, by the mysteries of His

244 The Venerable Bede

Incarnation, on the table1 of the holy altar." These
are the words of a man who had not been taught by
sad experience what mischief may be supposed to
lurk under harmless expressions when once they have
been appropriated by one side or another in a con
troversy. Against them we may set such words of
his as the following, words which no one who held
the views afterwards known as the doctrine of tran-
substantiation could have used : " The time of our
Passover is at hand. Let us come holy to the Altar
of the Lord, not to eat the flesh of a lamb, but to
receive the sacred mysteries of our Redeemer. Let
no one who abides still in death presume to receive the
mysteries of life. Let us pray that He may deign to
come to our feast, to illumine us with His presence, to
hallow His own gifts to us." And in another passage
he tells his hearers that the sacrifices under the new
covenant are spiritual : — " The two altars in the
Temple signify the two covenants. The first was the
altar of burnt-offerings, covered with brass, for offering
victims and sacrifices. This was the Old Covenant.
The second was at the entrance of the Holy of Holies,
covered with gold, for burning incense. This was the
inward and more perfect grace of the New Covenant."
Something to the same effect is a passage on the priest
hood after the order of Melchisedech : — " Melchisedech,
a priest of the most high God, offered to God bread and
wine long before the times of the priesthood of the Law.
And our Redeemer is called a Priest after the order
of Melchisedech, because after the priesthood of the
Law had come to an end, He established a similar

1 The " table of the altar," tabula altaris, was the specially con
secrated part of the surface of the altar on which the consecrated
elements were placed at the celebration.

The Commentaries and Homilies of Bede 245

sacrifice by offering the mystery of His Body and
Blood." Again, in preaching on the words, " Behold
the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world,''
in conjunction with the verse from the Apocalypse,
" Who hath loved us and washed us from our sins in
His blood" Bede speaks in words which set his views
before us in a clear and satisfactory manner. " He
washed us from our sins in His blood, not only when
He gave His blood on the cross for us, or when each
one of us by the mystery of His holy Passion was
washed clean by baptism of water, but He also daily
takes away the sins of the world. He washes us from
our sins daily in His Blood, when the memory of the
same blessed Passion is renewed at the altar, when the
creature of bread and wine is transferred into the
sacrament of His flesh and blood by the ineffable
sanctification of the Spirit ; and thus His Flesh and
Blood is not poured and slain by the hands of un
believers to their own destruction, but is taken by the
mouth of believers to their own salvation. The
paschal lamb in the Law rightly shows forth the figure
of this, the lamb which once freed the people from their
Egyptian slavery, and in memory of that freeing was
wont year by year to sanctify by its offering the same
people, until He should come to whom such a victim
bare witness ; and being offered to the Father for
us as a victim and a sweet-smelling savour, after
He had offered the lamb, He transferred to the
creature of bread and wine the mystery of His
Passion, being made a priest for ever after the order
of Melchisedech."

It may be worth while to quote on this point the
words of a learned divine who is supposed to have
presided over the Anglo-Saxon Church two centuries

246 The Venerable Bede

and a half after Bede's death, ^Elfric,1 Archbishop of
Canterbury. " When the Lord said, He that eateth My
flesh and drinketh My blood hath everlasting life, He
bade not His disciples to eat the Body wherewith He
was enclosed nor to drink that Blood which He shed
for us ; but He meant that holy morsel which is in a
ghostly way His Body and Blood ; and he that
tasteth it with believing heart hath everlasting life."
Thus it would appear that neither early nor late in
the history of the Church of England in Saxon times
were erroneous views held by the chief divines on this
cardinal point of Christian doctrine.

It has already been remarked that there is very
little indeed of personal allusion in Bede's sermons.
There is not, however, an entire absence of such
allusion. In a remarkable sermon on the text, " Every
one that hath forsaken houses, . . . shall receive an
hundredfold," Bede refers to the high esteem in
which those who professed the religious life were
held by those who remained in the world, so that
they actually did receive much more than they sur
rendered when they gave up their property and
worldly prospects. The " hundred " he takes to be
not a mere numeral but the symbol of perfection.
He who gives up human possessions and affections
will find an abundance of the faithful eager to receive
him, to put their houses and goods at his disposal, to
love him with a more perfect affection than wife or
mother or child. He reminded those whom he ad
dressed that they had practical proof of this. When

1 There was an 3LMx\c Archbishop of Canterbury 995—1005, and
an JBlfric Archbishop of York 1023-1051. If the homilist was one
of these two, he was probably of Canterbury. The homilies were
dedicated to Siric, the Archbishop of Canterbury who preceded
him. It is, however, not certain that the homilist was of higher rank
than Abbat when he wrote the homily.

The Commentaries and Homilies of Bede 247

they passed on rare occasions beyond the bounds of
the monastery, they found welcome and support
wherever they went. In another homily he speaks
of the use of the intellect in a manner which shows
how highly he estimated intellectual gifts, and how
seriously he felt that he himself devoted to God the
hours of study. The text was, " Wist ye not that I
must be about My Father's business," or, as Bede
completed the expression left indefinite in the Greek,
" in My Father's house." This, Bede says, refers not
only to the material temple in which Christ was, but
also to that temple of the intellect in which He was
exercising Himself when He heard the doctors and
asked them questions, a temple constructed for the
eternal praise of God.

We find Bede's views on the anointing with oil which
was afterwards changed into the doctrine of Extreme
Unction, in his remarks on the Epistle of James, v.
14-20. The Gospels, he says, show us that the Apostles
acted as Christians are there bidden to act. In his own
time the custom prevailed that sick men were anointed
with oil by the priests, with prayer accompanying, that
they might be healed. This is exactly not the purpose
of Extreme Unction. As Pope Innocent had written,
not priests only but any Christians might use the
oil for this purpose, in their own or their relations'
need. But only bishops might make the oil, for the
words " anointing him with oil in the name of the
Lord " implied two things, the one that the name of
the Lord was to be invoked when the oil was used, the
other that the oil was to be " oil in the name of the
Lord," i.e. made and consecrated in the name of the
Lord. Of Confession he proceeds to say that many
are in sickness and near death because of their sins. If

248 The Venerable Bede

such confess to the priests of the Church, and earnestly
set about to amend, their sins shall be dismissed.

The views of Bede's time, and of Bede himself, on
Purgatory, are clearly given in the account of a vision
in the Fifth Book of the Ecclesiastical History. We
have already seen in the life of Benedict Biscop some
parts of this vision,1 but we have not seen all. In
addition to the valley one side whereof was burning
heat and the other was piercing cold, and to the
flaming pit, the place of torment, the man to whom
the vision or trance was vouchsafed saw also the
abodes of blessedness of two degrees. After passing
the place of utmost torment, his guide and he came
to a wall whose height and length were infinite.
Presently, by what means he knew not, they were on
the top of the wall. At their feet lay a vast and
joyous plain, full of so sweet a fragrance of vernal
flowers as drove away the vile odours of the pit with
which his senses had been impregnated. The light
was clearer than the day, more splendid than the sun.
On the plain were innumerable congregations of
white-robed men, and crowds seated by companies
rejoicing. Not unnaturally he thought within himself
that these were the plains of Heaven. But his com
panion, knowing his thoughts, answered him, " Not
this is the Kingdom of Heaven."

And then, as he moved on, there dawned upon him
a yet fairer and more splendid effulgence, from out of
which proceeded the sweetest strains of singers and a
fragrancy so marvellous as far to transcend the exqui
site fragrance of the former abode. His guide allowed
him but to perceive these heavenly delights and then
led him back to the lesser degree of bliss. Standing

1 See page 120.

The Commentaries and Homilies of Bede 249

there, he expounded to him what he had seen. The
valley of overpowering heat and cold was the place
where the souls of those were tried and punished who
had delayed to confess their sins and amend their
lives, but who, having at the last moment confessed
and repented,. should enter into the kingdom of heaven
at the day of judgment. Many of these, the guide
declared, were so aided by the prayers and alms and
fastings of living men, and especially by masses, that
they would be released even before the day of judg
ment. The flowery plain on which he had seen the
happy bands of youth bright and fair, this was the
place to which the souls of those were sent who,
dying in good works, were yet not sufficiently perfect
to pass at once to the plains of Heaven. At the day
of judgment, they would pass to the higher glory.

It will be seen that while the latter class of souls
represented men whose lives had been almost perfect,
even those who were tormented in the valley had
repented before death. It appears that for those who
died without repentance, there was no hope from
prayers or alms or fasting, not even from masses. A
similar lesson is taught by another striking vision of
which Bede tells. When Bede was about thirty years
of age, there was in Mercia a man high in the military
service of King Coenred, but he was a man of evil life.
When he was very ill, indeed on his death-bed, the king
came to exhort him to repent. The unhappy man said
that he would amend his life if he recovered, but his
companions should never have it to say that he re
pented under the fear of death. The king came to
him again when he was much worse, and again ex
horted him. It was too late, the dying man cried ;
he had seen a vision, and it was too late. There had

250 The Venerable Bede

come into his room two youths very fair to look upon ;
the one sat down at his head the other at his feet.
They produced a little book, very beautiful, but
exceedingly small, and gave it him to read. He found
written therein all the good deeds he had done ; and
behold they were very few and inconsiderable. They
took back the book, and spake never a word. Then
on a sudden there rushed in an army of malignant
spirits, horrid to see, and they filled the whole house
where he was. One among them, who seemed to be
chief in horror and in place, brought out a book of
terrible appearance and intolerable heaviness, and
bade a satellite give it to the dying man to read.
Therein was written, alas, all that ever he had done
ill, in word or deed or thought. Then the prince of
the demons said to the white-robed youths who sat
at the head and the foot of the victim, " Why do ye
sit here, whereas ye know of a surety that the man is
ours ? " And they said, "It is true ; take him and
cast him on to the heap of your damnation " ; and
having so said, they departed. Then there arose two
of the worst spirits, having forks in their hands, and
they struck him, the one in the head and the other in
the feet. Such was the vision, but the wounds, the
desperate man said, were real ; they were spreading
to meet one another in the midst of his body ; and
so soon as they should meet he would die, and the
demons were at hand to drag him to hell. On which
Bede, writing five-and-twenty years after, remarks,
that the sinner was now suffering without avail in
eternal torments that penance which he had refused
to suffer for a brief period with its fruit unto forgive
ness of sins.

The feature in Bede's Homilies which would pro-

The Commentaries and Homilies of Bede 251

bably seem the most prominent to a reader not very
familiar with early compositions of the kind, is the
somewhat far-fetched figurative interpretation in
which he constantly indulges his imagination. To
take first an instance of such interpretation which
bears on a singular charge of heresy brought against
him. The six water-pots at the marriage in Cana of
Galilee were the six ages of the world down to the
first showing forth of our Lord's divinity. The first
was the age of Abel ; the second commenced with
the Flood ; the third with the call of Abraham ; the
fourth with David ; the fifth was the captivity ; the
sixth was the birth of our Lord, His circumcision,
presentation, and subjection to His parents. In con
nection with this subject Bede wrote a treatise, " On
the Ages of the World." In an epistle to Plegwin, a
monk of Hexham, he refers to the charge of heresy of
which mention has been made. Plegwin's messenger
had come to him with pleasant greetings, but he had
reported one dreadful thing, namely, that Plegwin had
heard that Bede was sung among heretics by wanton
rustics in their cups. Bede confesses that he was
horrorstruck on hearing this. He turned pale. He
asked, of what heresy was he thus accused. The mes
senger replied, " that Christ had not come in the flesh
in the sixth age of the world." He breathed again.
That Christ had come in the flesh no priest of Christ's
Church could be supposed to have denied. That
He came in the sixth age was another matter, and
Bede traced the report to one of Plegwin 's monks
to whom he had shown his book " On the Ages of
the World." In this book he made it clear that
the fifth age ended with the Incarnation, with which
also the sixth began. Thus the question to which

252 The Venerable Bede

of the two ages the Incarnation was to be assigned
might be resolved in either way. He had himself
assigned it to the sixth age, both in the book and
in a homily, so that the report was a calumny.
What a curious picture of the age is this singing of
heretics by rustics in their cups. It may remind us
of the use made of popular songs by Arius in spread
ing his views and discrediting his orthodox opponents.

That conjugal chastity is good, widowed continence
better, virgin perfection best of all, Bede proves as
follows, apparently on the assumption that those
things which are symbolized by the earliest parts of
our Lord's life on earth are more holy than those
symbolized by parts more remote from His birth.
" Jesus was born of a virgin ; therefore virgin per
fection is best of all. He was soon afterwards blessed
by a widow ; therefore widowed continence is next
after virgin perfection. Later in His life He was
present at a marriage feast ; therefore conjugal
chastity comes third only in order of merit."

In his Homily on the Feeding the Four Thousand,
he remarks that the seven baskets signified the seven
fold gifts of the Spirit. And he proceeds to say that
baskets made of rushes and palm-leaves were em
ployed, to signify that as the rush has its roots in
water, so the Christian is rooted in the fountain of
life ; and as the palm-leaf is the symbol of a con
queror, so the Christian is a conqueror, and more
than a conqueror. The two fishes were added to
show by means of these creatures of the water that
without the water of Baptism man cannot live.

The parable of the good Samaritan affords as good
an example as any of Bede's figurative interpretations.
The " certain man " is the human race in Adam.

The Commentaries and Homilies of Bede 253

" Jerusalem " is the heavenly city of peace, from
which Adam went down to " Jericho," that word
(meaning " the moon/' according to some early com
mentators) signifying the world with its changes and
its wanderings. The " thieves " were the devil and
his angels, who stripped him by taking from him
the glory of immortality and the garb of innocence.
His wounds were the blows of sin. He was left
only " half dead/' because while man was deprived of
the gift of eternal life, there yet was left him sense to
discern God. The Priest and Levite were the priest
hood and ministry of the Old Covenant. The Sa
maritan, or "guardian " — Samaria is supposed to have
taken its name from its admirable position as a place
of observation, or watch-tower — was the Lord Jesus.
Binding up the wounds was restraining the sins of
men. Pouring in oil was saying, " The kingdom of
heaven is at hand " ; pouring in wine was saying,
" Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is
hewn down." The beast of burden was the flesh in
which He deigned to come to us. The inn was the
Church on earth, where pilgrims are refreshed on
their way to heaven ; the bringing to the inn is
Baptism. The " next day " is after the resurrection of
the Lord. The two pence are the two Testaments,
said to be given to the innkeeper then, because there
it was that He opened their eyes that they under
stood the Scriptures. The innkeeper had something
over — " whatsoever thou spendest more " — which he
did not receive in the two pence, something beyond
the requirements of the two Testaments. This Bede
illustrates by such passages as " Now concerning
virgins I have no commandment of the Lord, yet I
give my judgment " ; and again, " The Lord hath

254 The Venerable Bede

ordained that they which preach the Gospel should
live of the Gospel ; but I have used none of these
things." To those who obeyed these ." counsels of
perfection," who did more in such matters than the
Scriptures actually required them to do. the debtor
would come again, and would pay them, when the
Lord came and said, " Because thou hast been faithful
over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many
things ; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."

The Homilies contain incidental allusions which
throw light upon some of the ceremonies of the time.
In this way, for example, we learn that for the anni
versary of the dedication day of the church of Jarrow,
they adorned the walls of the church, increased the
number of lights and of lections and the amount of
singing, and passed the previous night in joyful vigils.

The best means of giving the English reader an idea
of a sermon to an educated audience in England in
Bede's time, will be to reproduce one of his Homilies
entire in an English dress.

CHAPTER XIV

A SERMON BY BEDE

Collections of Homilies — Two books of Bede's Homilies — Manu
script evidence — The Text — " Whom do men say that I, the Son
of Man, am ? "

A LARGE number of sermons, written by Bede or at
least attributed to him, have been preserved. Some
of these are certainly not Bede's, but there are fifty
which may definitely be taken as his. They were not
intended for a mixed congregation, being addressed
to his brethren in the monastery. They consist for the
most part of a running exposition of passages of
Scripture, seldom elaborated and almost invariably
brief. On one occasion he apologises for having
preached a long sermon ; but the sermon in which the
apology occurs could be read without any haste in
twenty-eight minutes. The sermon of which a transla
tion is now given, as a specimen of the more practical
of Bede's sermons, would take about eighteen minutes
to deliver in the Latin, reading slowly.

There is a fine manuscript, in large quarto, which
Dr. Giles found in the Library of Boulogne and assigned
to the eighth or ninth century, that is, possibly to
Bede's own century, containing fifty of his Homilies.
It appears from Bede's own list of his works that he
issued two books of Homilies on the Gospel. It
would appear that each contained twenty-five, and

255

256 The Venerable Bede

that the fifty at Boulogne, the manuscript having
belonged to the monastery of St. Bertin at St. Omer,
are the two books in one, and are to be taken as
indubitably his. The usual collections of Homilies by
other preachers contain fifty-two, as though one for
each Sunday in the year, but of Bede's fifty, only ten
were written for Sundays. In the collected works of
Bede in the editions of Basle and Cologne there are
nearly two hundred Homilies attributed to him, very
many of them, as has been said, evidently not his.

The occasion of the sermon selected to illustrate
Bede's homiletic style was the Nativity of St. Peter
and St. Paul. The passages of Scripture chosen for
comment were the parallel passages, St. Matthew xvi.
13-19 ; St. Mark viii. 27-29 ; St. Luke ix. 18-21 ;
being the passages containing the Confession of Peter
"Thou art the Christ/' the passage of St. Matthew
including the promise " Thou art Peter," etc. The
whole sermon is devoted to the particular occasion in
the Gospel history which provides the text, and as
St. Peter is the actor on that occasion the whole
sermon is about him. Naturally there are no gospel
occasions or texts dealing with St. Paul. The sermon
which precedes this in the printed list is on the Vigil
of St. Peter and St. Paul, and in that sermon St. Paul
is dealt with, the text (St. John xxi. 15-19) con
taining words capable of a more general application,
" This He spake, signifying by what death He should
die." On those words Bede founded his remarks on
" the Apostle " par excellence, St. Paul.

The sermon on the Nativity of the Apostles Peter
and Paul is as follows : —

The holy Gospel which has been read to you, my
brethren, is worthy of your utmost attention, and

A Sermon by Bede 257

should be kept in constant remembrance. For it
commends to us perfect faith, and shows the strength
of such perfect faith against all temptations. If you
would know how one ought to believe in Christ,
what can be more clear than this which Peter says to
Him, " Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living
God " ? If you would hear of what avail is this belief,
what can be more plain than this which the Lord
says of the Church to be builded upon Him, " The
gates of hell shall not prevail against it " ? These
points will be more fully considered hereafter, each
in its own place. I will now proceed to the explana
tion of the whole passage, taking the sentences in their
natural order.

And first, of the place in which the Lord's words
were spoken. ' Jesus came into the coasts of Ccesarea
Philippi." Philip, as Luke informs us, was tetrarch
of Iturea and of the region of Trachonitis. He built
a city in the district where the Jordan rises, at the
foot of Mount Lebanon, a district which bounds
Judea towards the north, and he named it Csesarea
Philippi, after his own name, and at the same time in
honour of Tiberius Caesar, under whom he governed
the country.

" Jesus asked His disciples, saying, Whom do men say
that I, the Son of Man, am?" He does not ask as
though He knew not what His disciples and others
thought of Him. He questions the disciples as to
their opinion, in order that He may worthily reward
their confession of a true faith. For as, when all
were questioned, Peter alone answered for all, so
what the Lord answered to Peter, in Peter He answered
to all. And He asks what others think of Him, in
order that the erroneous opinions of others might

258 The Venerable Bede

be exposed, and so it would be shown that the disciples
received the truth of their confession not from the
common belief, but from the very secrets of revela
tion from the Lord. " Whom do men say that I,
the Son of Man, am ? " He asks. Right well does
He call them " men " who spoke of Him only as Son
of Man, because they knew not the secrets of His
Divinity. For they who can receive the mysteries
of His Divinity are deservedly said to be more than
men. The Apostle [meaning of course St. Paul, known
in the mediaeval times as " The Apostle "] himself
beareth witness, " Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard,
nor have entered into the heart of man, the things
which God hath prepared for them that love Him."
And having premised this of men, that is, of those
whose knowledge is from the human heart, the human
ear, the human eye, the Apostle presently adds, of him
self and of those like him who surpassed the ordinary
knowledge of the human race, " but God hath revealed
them unto us by His Spirit." In the same way here,
when the Lord had questioned the disciples as to
whom men held Him to be, and they had stated
the different views of different persons, He says to
them : —

" But whom do ye say that I am ? " as though
setting them apart from ordinary men, and implying
that they were made gods and sons of God by adop
tion, according to that saying of the Psalmist, " I
have said, Ye are gods, and ye are all the children of
the Most Highest."

" Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the
Christ, the Son of the living God." He calls Him
the " living " God by way of distinction from the false
gods which heathendom in its various delusions

A Sermon by Bede 259

made to itself to worship, either of dead men, or —
greater folly still — of insensate matter. Of which
false gods it is sung in the Psalm, " their idols are
silver and gold, the work of men's hands." And
mark well, my beloved, for it is worthy of all admira
tion, how, when the true view of both the natures of
the same Lord our Saviour is to be expressed, it is
the Lord who sets forth the humility of the manhood
He had taken upon Him, the disciple who shows the
excellency of the divine eternity. The Lord says of
Himself that which is the less, the disciple says of the
Lord that which is the greater. So, too, in the Gospel,
the Lord was accustomed to speak of Himself much
more often as Son of Man than as Son of God, that
He might admonish us of the dispensation which He
undertook for us. And we ought the more humbly
to reverence the high things of His divinity, the more
we remember that for our exaltation He descended to
the low estate of manhood. For if among the mysteries
of the Incarnation, by which we have been redeemed,
we cherish always in pious memory the power of the
divinity by which we have been created, we too with
Peter are rewarded with blessing from on high. For
when Peter confesses Him to be the Christ, the Son
of the living God, see what follows : — " Jesus answered
and said, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona." It is
certain, then, that after true confession of Christ there
remain the true rewards of Blessedness.

Let us now consider attentively what and how
great is that name with which He glorifies the perfect
confessor of His name, that by a true confession
we may deserve to be partakers of this also. " Blessed
art thou, Simon Bar-Jona." Bar-Jona in Syriac
signifies " son of a dove." And rightly is the Apostle

260 The Venerable Bede

Peter called son of a dove, for the dove is without
guile, and Peter followed his Lord in prudent and
pious guilelessness, mindful of that precept of guile-
lessness and truth which he and his fellow-disciples
received from the same Master — " Be ye wise as
serpents, and harmless as doves." And surely, since the
Holy Spirit descended upon the Lord in the form of a
dove, he is rightly called " Son of a Dove " who is
shown to have been filled with the grace of the Spirit.
And justly does the Lord reward him who loved Him
and confessed Him, by declaring that he, who asserted
Him to be Son of the living God, is son of the Holy Spirit.
Of course no faithful man doubts that these two son-
ships are very different. For the Lord Christ is Son of
God by nature : Peter, as also the other elect, son
of the Holy Spirit by grace. Christ is Son of the
living God, because He is born of Him : Peter is son
of the Holy Spirit, because he is born again of Him.
Christ is Sion of God before all time, for He is that
virtue of God and wisdom of God which saith, " The
Lord possessed Me in the beginning of His way,
before His works of old." Peter is son of the Holy
Spirit from the time when, illumined by Him, he
received the grace of divine knowledge. And because
the will of the Holy Trinity is one, and the operation
one, when the Lord had said, " Blessed art thou,
Simon Bar-Jona," that is, son of the grace of the
Spirit, He rightly proceeded to say —

" For flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee ;
but my 'Father which is in Heaven." It was indeed
the Father who revealed it : for the grace of the
Father and of the Holy Spirit is one, as also that
of the Son, which may be proved very easily from
sacred Scripture. For the Apostle says of the Father,

A Sermon by Bede 261

" God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your
hearts." The Son Himself says of the Holy Spirit,
" But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send
unto you from the Father." The Apostle says of
the Holy Spirit, " But all these worketh that one and
the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as
He will." The Father therefore sends the Spirit, the
Son sends the Spirit : the Spirit Himself breatheth
where He listeth, because, as we have said, the will
and the operation of the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Spirit, is one. And hence it is fittingly said,
that the Father which is in heaven revealed to the
son of the dove that mystery of faith which flesh
and blood could not reveal. Now flesh and blood we
rightly understand to mean men puffed up with the
wisdom of the flesh, ignorant of the guilelessness
of the dove, and thus as far as possible removed from
the wisdom of the Spirit. Of whom it has been said
above, that in their ignorance of Christ some said
that He was John the Baptist ; some Elias ; and
others Jeremias, or one of the prophets. Of such
men the Apostle saith : " But the natural man re-
ceiveth not the things of the Spirit of God."

To proceed. " And I say unto thee, That thou art
Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church."
Peter, who was before named Simon, received from
the Lord the name of Peter on account of the strength
of his faith and the constancy of his confession ;
for his mind clung firmly to That of which it is written,
"that rock was Christ." "And upon this rock,"
that is, upon the Lord and Saviour who gave to him
that knew Him, loved Him, confessed Him, a share
in His own name, so that from the Rock he should be
called Peter ; on which Rock the Church is builded,

262 The Venerable Bede

because only by believing and loving Christ, by
receiving the Sacraments of Christ, by observing the
commandments of Christ, can man arrive at the lot
of the elect, at eternal life. To this the Apostle
[again of course St. Paul] beareth witness when he
saith, " For other foundation can no man lay than
that is laid, which is Jesus Christ/'

" And the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it."
The gates of Hell are wicked doctrines, which seduce
men and bring them to Hell. The gates of Hell,
further, are the tortures and the blandishments of
persecutors, who by terrifying and enticing unstable
souls, open unto them an entrance into eternal death.
Further, the gates of Hell are the evil deeds and the
unseemly words of believers, inasmuch as they show
the way of perdition to those who allow them or
follow their example. For even faith, if it have not
works, is dead in itself, and evil communications
corrupt good manners. Many, then, are the gates of
Hell ; but not one of them prevails against the
Church which is builded on the Rock : for one who
has received the faith of Christ with the inmost love
of his heart, easily puts down every temptation from
without. But a believer who has depraved and1 be
trayed his belief, either by wrongdoing or by denial,
is to be taken as having built the house of his con
fession, not on a rock with the Lord as his helper,
but on sand with no foundation : that is, he must
be held to have made pretence of being a Christian,
with no simple and true determination to follow
Christ, but with some frail earthly purpose.

" And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom
of Heaven" He who confessed the King of Heaven
with a devotion beyond that of others, had worthily

A Sermon by Bede 263

conferred upon him beyond others the keys of the
kingdom of Heaven ; that all might know, how that
without such confession and faith none may enter
into the kingdom of Heaven. And He describes, as
" the keys of the kingdom of Heaven," that know
ledge and power of discerning by which the worthy
would be received into the kingdom, the unworthy
rejected. It is evidently on this account that He
added : —

" And whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be
bound in Heaven : and whatsoever thou shalt loose on
earth shall be loosed in Heaven." This power of kind-
ing and of loosing seems to be given by the Lord
to Peter alone ; but without the slightest doubt it is
given to the other Apostles also. Christ Himself
bears witness to this, for after the triumph of His
Passion and Resurrection He appeared to them,
and breathing on them said, " Receive ye the Holy
Ghost : whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted
unto them ; and whosesoever sins ye retain, they are
retained."1 Nay, the same function is committed now,
in the person of the bishops and priests, to the whole
Church, so that after knowledge of the case of sinners
it may take pity on those whom it sees to be humble
and truly penitent, and absolve them from the fear of
eternal death ; while it marks as bound under ever-

1 In another passage Bede discusses the relative position of
Peter and the chief Apostles. He remarks, that though Peter is
named first in the catalogues of the Apostles, Paul says, " James,
Cephas, and John," and that the order of the Catholic Epistles is
the same. The reason for this order he understands to be that
James ruled in Jerusalem, the fountain-head of the Church ; also,
James wrote to the tribes from whom the first believers came, Peter
to the Gentile proselytes the next believers, and John to the Gentiles
who were not proselytes, the third class of believers in order of time.
Bede could scarcely have said more than he does had he foreseen the
claims which later ages would make in St. Peter's name.

264 The Venerable Bede

lasting punishments those whom it finds to be per
sistent in their sins. Whence in another place the
Lord says of one who is once and again taken in a
fault and yet repenteth not, — " But if he neglect to
hear the Church, let him be unto thee as an heathen
man and a publican." And lest any should deem it
a light thing to be condemned by the judgment of
the Church, He adds presently these terrible words,
" Verily I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall bind on
earth shall be bound in Heaven ; and whatsoever ye
shall loose on earth shall be loosed in Heaven/' To
the whole Church, then, of the elect is there given
authority to bind and loose according to the measure
of sins and of repentance. But the blessed Peter,
who confessed Christ with a true faith, and followed
Him with a true love, received in a special manner
the keys of the kingdom of Heaven and the first
place of the power of judgment ; in order that all
believers throughout the world may understand that
no man who in any way separates himself from the
unity of faith and fellowship can be absolved from
the chains of sin or enter the gate of the kingdom of
Heaven.1 So that, my dearest brethren, we must of
necessity learn with the utmost care the sacraments
of the faith which he taught, and show forth works
meet for faith. We must with all vigilance beware of
the manifold and subtle snares of the gates of Hell,
that so we may be worthy to enter into the gates of
the daughter of Sion, that is, into the joys of the city

1 In another sermon Bede expounds our Lord's words as follows :
Thou art Peter, and on this rock from which thou hast received thy
name, that is, on Myself, I will build My Church ; on this perfection
of faith which thou hast confessed I will build My Church, and who
soever departeth from the fellowship of this confession belongeth not
to My Church.

A Sermon by Bede 265

which is on high. And let us not suppose that it
suffices for salvation that we be like unto the crowds
of careless and ignorant persons in faith or in deeds,
for there is in the sacred writings one only rule laid
down for faith and life. But as often as the examples
of those who err are brought before us, let us turn
away the eyes of our mind lest they behold vanity,
and carefully investigate what truth itself teaches.
Let us follow the example of the blessed Peter, who
rejected the errors of others, and made with the
mouth an unwavering profession of the hidden things
of the true faith which he had learned, and kept
them in his heart with invincible care. For in this
place we learn of the faithfulness of confession ; while
of the virtue of single love for Christ He beareth
witness Himself in another place, when some of His
disciples went back, and He said unto the twelve,
"Will ye also go away?" "Peter answered Him,
Lord, to whom shall we go ? Thou hast the words of
eternal life. And we believe and are sure that Thou
art that Christ, the son of the living God." If we set
ourselves to follow his example, my brethren, according
to our ability, we too shall be able with him to be
called blessed and to be blessed ; to us, too, the
name of Simon will be meet, that is, of one that obeys
Christ ; we too, on account of the guilelessness of
our faith that is not feigned, and the grace we receive
from the Lord, shall be called sons of the virtue of
the dove ; and He Himself, rejoicing with us in the
spiritual progress of our soul, shall say, " Behold,
thou art fair, my love ; behold, thou art fair ; thou
hast dove's eyes." And so it cometh to pass that if
we build on the rock of faith, gold, silver, precious
stones, that is, the perfect works of virtues, the fires

266 The Venerable Bede

of tribulation shall bring no harm, the storms of
temptation shall not prevail. Nay, rather, proved by
adversity, we shall receive the crown of life, promised
before the ages by Him who liveth and reigneth God,
with the Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, for
ever and ever. Amen.

CHAPTER XV

FURTHER MIRACLES

The power of faith — Miracles wrought on Bede and by his relics —
General belief — Further miracles by Cuthbert — Preservation of
his body — His coffin — Its ornamentation — Later miracles —
Bishop John of Hexham — General conclusion on miracles.

BEDE'S Life of St. Cuthbert is full of miracles, as we
have seen in Chapter VIII. And the later portions of
his Ecclesiastical History abound in miracles, care
fully attested by many witnesses, and told in honour
of the saints by whose power or prayers they were
wrought. And there can be no doubt at all that Bede
himself entirely believed in the existence and frequent
display of miraculous power in Northumbria and other
parts of England, while it is evident that in many of
his examples the result might have been due to
natural causes.

In fairness to that age it is right to point out that
our own generation has learned to recognise the power
of faith to help the physician in his efforts to expel
disease or ward off death. We have to remember
how active faith is among early converts from
paganism. Missionary experience has taught us to
understand Bede's view and Bede's stories of
miracle. An unseen power produced or helped on
the effect. That unseen power was not in any real
sense miraculous, it worked from within the patient
not from without. But Bede, if he were here, might

267

268 The Venerable Bede

plead that the spirit which operated in the faith was
specially vouchsafed for the occasion by Divine
operation ; and I do not know what spiritually
minded person would be bold to assert that Bede
would be wrong in so pleading.

Besides a statement that Bede's relics had in one
case a miraculous effect, we have it from himself
that by interposition from St. Cuthbert, after the
Bishop's death, a miracle was performed upon him.
It appears that he had some difficulty with his tongue.
"I," he wrote to Bishop John of Hexham, "was,
as I have told you, the receiver of miraculous help
through him. For, as I was singing his miracles, my
affection of the tongue was cured." It may remind
us of the many cases of recovery of speech by wounded
soldiers in a moment of emotion of one kind and
another.

It is evident, too, that the stories of miracles were
generally believed in his time. The manner in which
he relates miraculous stories without any comment is
sufficient to show this. There is direct evidence of it,
also, in his account of the compilation of the Life of
St. Cuthbert — & history full of miracle. When he had
finished the life, he submitted it, as we have seen
already, before publication — or rather, as the equiva
lent of publication in those times, before allowing it
to be transcribed — to the monastery in which Cuth
bert had lived. The monks read it, and considered
it carefully, and gave their testimony to its accuracy
as a faithful account of their saint's life. Thus the
story of Cuthbert 's many miracles was held to be true
by those among whom his life had been spent.

After his Life of Cuthbert was written, Bede
received a number of fresh stories of miracles con-

Further Miracles 269

nected with that saint. These he gave in the fourth
book of the History, prefacing them with an account
of the discovery by the brethren of Lindisfarne that
the body of Cuthbert remained fresh and lifelike,
and its joints pliable, eleven years after death. In
the course of this account, by the way, we find
that Cuthbert 's successor, Eadbert, made a practice
of spending the forty days of Lent in perfect solitude,
on a remote bit of land surrounded by the sea. The
contrast between the life of a bishop of Durham,
with the demands upon his time, in those days and
these, could scarcely be brought out more strongly.

There was in the monastery at Lindisfarne a
brother whose name was Bethwegen, whose office it
was to attend to the wants of visitors to the monas
tery. He was a great favourite with every one, and
was a man of much piety. He had been washing the
linen in the sea on one occasion, and when returning
to the monastery he was seized with palsy, one side
of his body being completely paralyzed. He managed
to drag himself to the church, and prostrated himself
before Cuthbert 's tomb. Falling into a stupor, he
felt a large and broad hand touch his head on the
injured side, and he was immediately made whole
from head to foot.

Another story is made vivid by Bede's introductory
remark that the miracle occurred " three years ago,"
and was related to him by the brother on whom it
was wrought. The monastery was in Cumberland.
It took its name from the river Dacore, near which it
was built. The place is now Dacre, near Penrith.
The abbat was the religious Suidbert. The brother
had a swelling on his eyelid, which grew so much as to
threaten the loss of his eyesight. The doctors

270 The Venerable Bede

fomented it in vain,1 and then they disagreed. Some
said it must be cut off ; others said that would be
worse than the disease. It happened that one of the
priests of the monastery, Thridred, who was abbat
when Bede wrote, had kept in a box some of the hair
of the sainted Cuthbert, taken from his body when it
was exhumed eleven years after his death. This box
he entrusted one day to the brother with the swelling
on his eyelid. The brother, by a salutary instinct, took
some of the hair from the box and applied it to the
eyelid. This was — "as he is wont to say " — about
the second hour of the day. He went about his
business, and four hours later he chanced to touch
his eyelid, when he found it as sound as the other.

We have seen in Chapter VIII that eleven years
after the death of St. Cuthbert his body was found
to be quite fresh and undecayed, and its limbs supple.
It seems clear from Bede's phrase that the brethren
regarded this as of something like a miraculous
character. The purpose of their investigation was,
to place the remains of the saint in a more suitable
coffin. This coffin is one of the most remarkable of
all the many remarkable relics of the saint. It is
the innermost of the three coffins in which the body
was enclosed, the coffin made in Lindisfarne eleven
years after the saint's death, namely, in A.D. 698.

The great translation of the body, in its coffin, to
the new Cathedral Church of Durham on the 29th
of August, 1104, is described by an anonymous
author. It is evident that remarkably clear notes
were made of the ornamentation of the coffin at that

1 The remedy for swollen eyes in the Saxon leech-book was less
simple than this : — take a live crab, put his eyes out, and put him
alive again into water ; and put the eyes upon the neck of the man
who hath need • he will soon be well.

Further Miracles 271

time, for Reginald, who wrote fully of it sixty years
later, describes it as accurately as if it had been seen
again in his time. The very careful examiners of the
sacred relics in 1827 were astonished with the accuracy
of Reginald's description. He tells of the unusual
shape of the coffin, and of its flat lid, which was not
fastened to the great rectangular chest and had rings
" in its middle breadth in the direction of his feet and
his head," whereby the lid could be raised. One of
these two rings was found in 1827.

Reginald stated that the inner coffin was found in
1104 to be externally carved with very admirable
engravings, of minute and most delicate workman
ship, and that in small and circumscribed tracts or
compartments, there were beasts, flowers, and figures
(imagines) engrafted, engraved, or furrowed in the
wood. Many of these were found in 1827, and
portions of the wood were kept. In 1898 a further
effort was made to find completing portions, not
without some success. In 1827 the figures and names,
or parts of the figures and names, of Apostles and
Evangelists were found, St. John, St. Mark, St.
Thomas, St. Peter, St. Andrew, St. Matthew, St. Paul.
The drapery and the lettering are of the highest value
as illustrations of early art and of palaeography.1
There were also the Virgin and Child, the fore feet of
a Lion, and the head and neck of an Eagle in a
nimbus.

A few additional examples, taken from the later
parts of Bede's " Ecclesiastical History," will illus
trate the claims to miraculous powers made on
behalf of saints and relics in those ages. They will

1 See The ancient cross-shafts of Bewcastle and Ruthwett, G. F.
Browne, pages 28 and 45.

272 The Venerable Bede

at the same time give incidentally some further idea
of the manner of life of important ecclesiastics. By
going to the later parts of the history for our examples,
we obtain accounts of miracles which have the actual
attestation of those who took part in them, some of
whom related the details to Bede with their own
mouth.

Guthfrid, afterwards Abbat of Lindisfarne, told
Bede of a miracle which had happened to him and
two other brethren. They had gone in a boat to the
island of Fame to speak with a hermit who had taken
up his abode there. When they were half-way back
again, a violent storm came on, and death appeared to
be imminent. In their distress they saw the hermit,
Ethelwald, come out of his cave and call upon God.
The storm at once assuaged ; they got safe to shore ;
and as soon as they had dragged their boat to a safe
distance from the sea, the storm came on again and
raged for a whole day.

Berthun, Abbat of Inderawuda (Beverley, in the
wood of Deira), who was alive when Bede wrote his
History, used to tell the following story of Bishop
John of Hexham, who ordained Bede. There was a
certain retired dwelling near the church of Hagulstad
(Hexham), but on the other side of the Tyne. It was
surrounded by a narrow wood and an earthen mound
and was a cemetery dedicated to St. Michael the
Archangel. Here Bishop John used to come whenever
he had an opportunity, and especially in Lent, to pray
and read quietly with a few companions. In the
village near there was a dumb man, who, in addition
to that affliction, had some disease of the scalp, which
prevented the hair from growing on the top of his
head. It grew lower down, but that was no improve-

Further Miracles 273

ment, for it stood out bristling in a ring round his
head. Bishop John sent for this man, and had a
little hut made for him within the inclosure of the
cemetery. On the second Sunday in Lent he called
the dumb man into his presence and told him to put
out his tongue. The bishop made the sign of the
Cross on the tongue and told him to draw it back
into his mouth and say " Yes." " Gae," said the
man, which in the then English language meant
"yes." /'Say A," said the bishop. "A," said
the man. " Say B," said the Bishop. " B," said the
man. They went through the alphabet, and then got
into syllables and words and sentences. The first
effect must have been rather trying, for we are told
that he talked nearly the whole of that day and all
the next night as long as he could keep awake. Not
satisfied with this success, the bishop put the man's
head into the hands of a doctor,1 aiding his skill by
blessings and prayers, and the scalp became sound
and a good head of hair grew. Thus, as Bede sums
up, the poor man became possessed of good looks,
a ready tongue, and very beautifully crisp and curly
hair. The bishop offered to take the fortunate fellow
into his own household, but life was brighter to him
now and he preferred to go home.

Two of this bishop's miracles were wrought when he
was visiting great men for the purpose of consecrating
their churches. About two miles from the monastery
a certain Earl Puch had a country house, where his
wife had long lain ill ; for three weeks she had not

1 The Saxon leech-book had remedy for this as for everything : —
If a man's hair fall off, work him a salve ; take the mickle wolf's
bane, and viper's bugloss, and the netherward part of burdock, and
ferdwort ; work the salve out of these worts and butter on which no
water hath come.

274 The Venerable Bede

been moved from her bed. After the consecration of
the church, the earl asked the bishop to dine with
him. The bishop refused, saying he must get back
to dinner. Probably he was afraid to face a Saxon
noble's feasting. The earl pressed him to stay, and
vowed that if he would break fast in his house he
would give alms to the poor. Bcde's informant, who
accompanied the bishop, joined his entreaties to those
of the earl, being not indisposed to partake of secular
hospitality. At length the bishop yielded. He had
already sent to the earl's wife some of the holy water
he had blessed for the consecration of the church,
with instructions to apply it both outwardly and
inwardly.1 The lady had done as she was bidden, and
had been healed. On the bishop's arrival she pre
sented the cup to him and his companions, and she
continued to serve them with drink as long as the
meal lasted, ministering to them after the example of
Peter's mother-in-law. The other occasion was at
the consecration of Earl Addi's church. The earl
begged the bishop to pay a visit to one of his servants,
who had lost the use of his limbs : he was supposed
to be at the point of death ; indeed, the coffin had
been prepared. The earl was sure that if only the
bishop would lay his hand upon him and bless him,
he would even yet be healed. Addi was moved to
tears in the earnestness of his request, and the bishop
consented to see the man. He found him lying all
but dead, with a coffin ready at his side. He said a

1 Holy water was an ingredient in the Saxon leech's somewhat
complicated cure for " Lent addle " (typhus fever) : — Work to a
drink wormwood, everthront, lupin, waybrond, ribwort, chervil,
attorlothe, feverfue, alessandus, bishopwort, lovage, sage, cassock,
in foreign ale ; add holywater and springwort. Holy water was
employed in making a somewhat similar drink for a fiend-sick
person ; in this case the potion was to be drunk out of a church bell.

Further Miracles 275

prayer, gave him the blessing, and left him with what
Bede calls the usual speech of comforters, " I hope
you will soon be better." They then sat down to
dinner, and before long a message came that the
servant was thirsty and would like some wine. The
earl sent him some at once, and it had such an effect
upon him that he got up and dressed himself and
joined the bishop and the other guests, saying that he
would be glad to dine with them. They invited him
to sit down, he greatly enjoyed his dinner, and lived
happy for many years.

Herebald, Abbat of Tynemouth, told Bede of a
miracle which Bishop John had wrought in his favour.
When he was a young man living with the saint, and
studying reading and singing, but not altogether
weaned as yet from youthful pleasures, he and a
number of other youths accompanied John in one of
his expeditions on horseback. In the course of their
journey, they came to a large level piece of ground,
well suited for a race. They begged their master to
let them try their horses, — the lay youths especially,
as Herebald used to tell. He at first refused, saying it
was an idle request ; but after a time he gave his con
sent, with the proviso that Herebald did not race with
the rest. Herebald begged hard to be allowed to race,
for he was on an excellent horse which the bishop
had given him ; but he could not get leave. The
sight of his companions racing was too much for him,
and he set off without leave, the bishop calling out
after him reproachfully. In a very short time the
horse made an unexpected leap over a hole in the
ground, and Herebald was thrown. On all the
plain there was only one stone, and exactly on that
one stone was Herebald landed head first. He put

276 The Venerable Bede

one hand to his head to break the fall, but his thumb
was broken and his skull was fractured. As he lived
to tell the tale in his old age, it is unnecessary to say
that he was saved from death by a miracle, wrought
in his favour by his forgiving master.

If Herebald had been left to the secular leech, he
might have been treated in accordance with the Saxon
prescription from Apuleius : — If a man's head be
broken, take the herb betony, scrape it and rub it
very small to dust, then take by two drachms weight
and swallow it in hot beer ; the head healeth very
quickly after the drink. Or the Saxon leech-book
might have been followed : Take betony, bruise it,
and lay it on the head above, then it unites the wound
and healeth it. And take garden cress, such as
waxeth of itself ; put it in the nose, that the smell
and juice may get to the head. And if the brain be
exposed, take the yolk of an egg and mix with honey,
and fill the wound and swathe up with tow ; and so
let it alone.

It is worthy of notice that although Bede had in a
few cases actually conversed with persons on whom
these " miracles " had been wrought, the events had
in almost all cases occurred some considerable time
before Bede wrote, as much as a generation before.
They were almost without exception things of the
past, stories told of the early heroes of Christianity
in the land. Bede could not or did not name any
one living in his time who had any claim to miracu
lous power. He does, however, state that miracles
were still wrought in his time by relics ; we may note
that his own relics in their turn performed a miracu
lous cure. We have seen the efficacy of the wood of
Oswald's cross. We have also an account of frequent

Further Miracles 277

miracles wrought at the tomb of St. Chad. A man out
of his mind had lodged on the spot for a night, un
observed by the guardians of the tomb, and in the
morning he went forth in his right mind. The place of
the sepulchre was a wooden monument, like a small
house ; there was a hole in the wall, through which
men put their hands and brought out some of the
dust, which they gave in water to sick men and cattle
as a general specific. Bede asserts that this remedy
continued to be efficacious in his time, Chad having
died about the year of Bede's birth. Similarly Bishop
Earconwald of London, who died a year or two later,
left behind him a miraculous influence. His horse-
litter, in which he had travelled when he was out of
health, was kept by his disciples as a cure for agues
and other distempers. The litter would probably not
exist long, for Bede relates that chips of it were
carried to sick persons, and they healed them.

On a review of Bede's writings as a whole, we may
fairly say that the miraculous influence claimed for
illustrious missionaries was confined to the first and
second generation of Christian teachers in the land.
To say that even in the first and second generation
there was no such influence at work would be to say
more than we are entitled to say. In the earliest
years of a mission, as the experience of times later
than those of Bede has shown, there are occasions
on which it is very difficult to say whether the Divine
power which the Christian believes to be really
working has wrought openly, whether the Lord has, in
fact, in the sight of men, confirmed the words of His
Apostles with signs following.

CHAPTER XVI

THE STATE OF MORALS IN BEDE'S TIME

Ecclesiastics — Monasteries — Lay people — Nuns — Kings — Remains
of paganism.

IT has been remarked that Bede's sermons throw no
light upon the state of society in his time. They
were not addressed to a mixed audience, and they
did not profess to deal with subjects relating to prac
tical life or with ordinary moral questions. We have,
however, the long letter described in Chapter X which
he wrote to Archbishop Ecgbert of York, and in this
we find many references to the prevailing state of
morals. The picture he draws is a dark one ; and he
remarks, towards the end of his letter, as we have seen,
that if he were to write in detail about drunkenness,
gluttony, and debauchery, the letter would extend to
an immense length. If the ordinary date of Bede's
death be correct, we have in this letter some of his last
words. For our present purpose we must repeat some
parts of what is said in Chapter X.

Ecgbert, to whom this interesting letter was ad
dressed, was the cousin of King Ceolwulf , who reigned
in Northumbria from 729 A.D. to 737. He became
Archbishop of York, and head of the great cathedral
school of that city. Bede, having spent some days
with him in study and interchange of ideas, was
invited to repeat his visit in the following year. His

278

The State of Morals in Bede's Time 279

state of health prevented his accepting this invitation,
and, in consequence, he wrote at considerable length
some of the things he had intended to say to the
bishop, had he been able to pay him another visit
The main subject of the letter is the covetousness
of bishops, and the disorderliness of many establish
ments which called themselves religious houses. Inci
dentally we learn a good deal on points which would
not naturally be included under those heads.

The conduct of the bishops in general seems to have
been unsatisfactory. Bede urges the archbishop him
self, who was as yet bishop of York, hot archbishop,
to abstain with episcopal dignity from unseemly
conversation, and from the evils of an unrestrained
tongue. He advises him to read carefully and often
the Epistles to Timothy and Titus, as specially suited
to his position, and also the Pastoral Care of Pope
Gregory. Above all things, he should surround him
self with devout persons — the best check upon im
purity of speech or action. Of some bishops it was
commonly reported that they had no pious or conti
nent men near them ; their companions were men
given to rioting and drunkenness, thinking more of
feeding the body than of nourishing the mind with
heavenly sacrifices.

As to the priests, Bede tells us that he has often
given an English translation of the Creed and the
Lord's Prayer to priests who were ignorant of Latin.
What a picture this offers of the state of things for
which he thus provided some sort of remedy, — the
priest repeating words of which he did not know the
meaning, the congregation listening or not listening
in ignorance as complete.

We find an illustration of the ignorance of priests

280 The Venerable Bede

in a story told by Bede of a miracle wrought by
Bishop John of Hexham on Herebald afterwards
Abbat of Tynemouth. Herebald told Bede that
after he had had a fall from his horse,1 which must
have proved fatal but for the intercession of John, the
bishop asked him whether he knew for certain that
he had been baptized. Herebald said there could
be no question about it ; and he named the priest
who had performed the ceremony. " Then/1 the
bishop rejoined, " you are not rightly baptized. For
I know the man, and though he was ordained priest,
he was too slow to learn the offices of catechising
and baptizing ; and I had to order him to desist
from the attempt to perform them." The bishop at
once proceeded to catechise Herebald ; and, after
some time, he baptized him. What interesting contro
versial questions this case would raise if it occurred in
these modern times, as it quite possibly might. The
Canons of the Church of England in Anglo-Norman
times show that this ignorance of priests was by no
means confined to Anglo-Saxon times. And it will be
remembered that the " hocus pocus " of the conjurer
is said to be the layman's imitation of the ignorant
priest's pronunciation of the hoc est Corpus at the
consecration of the elements in the Eucharist, by which
the priest was supposed to bring about a miracle.

Other dioceses were as large in proportion as
Ecgbert's, and were still more neglected. There were
many outlying places on the hills and among the woods
where no bishop had been seen for many years ; nay,
where there was no one to teach the people the differ
ence between good and evil. The source of this
mischief was the covetousness of bishops. Every such

1 See page 275.

The State of Morals in Bede's Time 281

hamlet paid tribute to the bishop, and for filthy lucre's
sake bishops undertook a much larger number of
villages than they could possibly attend to. In this
way the rite of Confirmation, on the importance of
which Bede insists, was very generally neglected. The
remedy was, the appointment of more bishops ; but
the kings had been so careless and profuse in assigning
one district after another to existing bishops, that it
was hard to find any place for a new see. Still, since
the reigning king was Ecgbert's first cousin— the next
as we have seen was Ecgbert's brother — Bede argued
that the opportunity was a favourable one for extend
ing and completing the ecclesiastical establishment of
the kingdom. Pope Gregory had intended, in Augus
tine's time that the metropolitan see of York should
have twelve suffragan bishops, and a great effort ought
to be made to carry out this idea. Ceolwulf, it may
be remarked, was himself much interested in Church
matters, and it was to him that Bede dedicated his
Ecclesiastical History ; indeed, two years after this,
the king was tonsured and became a monk.

The question of the subdivision of bishoprics was
no new one in Northumbria, and it had before this
time led to very serious results. Ecgfrith, the king of
Northumbria, and Theodore, the famous archbishop
of Canterbury, had agreed that the vast Northumbrian
diocese over which Wilfrith ruled — that Wilfrith who
had played so important a part at the Council of
Whit by — must be subdivided. Wilfrith offered an
unflinching resistance to the plan, and he was in con
sequence deposed by the authority of the king and
parliament, as we should say. We have seen in
Chapter IX something of the events which followed.

With a view to providing funds for the new bishop-

282 The Venerable Bede

rics, Bede had a practical suggestion to make, which
throws great light on the evils attendant upon the
monastic system in such times, and leads him to make
remarks which help us in our search for evidence as to
the state of morals at that time. He proposed, first of
all, that some of the large monasteries should be ap
propriated for the foundation of episcopal sees, the
opposition of the monks being got over by putting into
their hands the election of the bishop, who should also
be abbat. In cases where the funds of the monastery
would not bear the additional charge entailed by the
necessary expenses of an active bishop, there were only
too many so-called monasteries which might well
be suppressed by synodical authority and annexed to
the new sees. Bede describes these monasteries as
very numerous and very large. The common saying
about them was that they were of no use to God or
man ; for the life of the inmates was not godly, and
the property, being free from secular claims, provided
no assistance against the barbarians. Hence, any one
who did what he could to meet the pressing require
ments of the times, by annexing such monasteries to
episcopal sees, would do an act of virtue, not of con
fiscation. If Ecgbert and the king did not take some
prompt steps in the way of cancelling the grants of
former kings, on the one hand religion would cease
altogether, on the other there would be no one to
defend the country against the barbarians. Already
so much land was absorbed by these foundations, that
there was none left to give to the sons of nobles and
of retired soldiers, so that a large number of young
men were at a loose end, some deserting their country
and going across the seas, others living a life of the
grossest licence at home.

The State of Morals in Bede's Time 283

This introduces the mention of what Bede describes
as a greater scandal still. Men who had no know
ledge or love of the monastic life, purchased grants
of land from the king under pretence of desiring to
found monasteries, and had the grants made to them
and their heirs for ever. They then erected buildings,
collected a number of worthless persons, outcast
monks or dependents of their own, whom they
tonsured, and over this medley they ruled, living most
disgraceful lives, some married, some worse. Many
of them got lands for their wives in the same way,
and established disorderly convents, over which the
wives ruled. To such an extent was this wicked folly
carried, that for the thirty years preceding the time of
Bede's writing, that is, for the whole time since king
Aldfrith's death, there had never once been a prefect
who did not furnish himself with an establishment of
the kind, and his wife also, if he had one. Bede plain
tively remarks that this evil might have been put down
by synodical and episcopal authority, but unfortunately
the bishops themselves fostered it for the sake of the
money they earned by confirming the grants of the
kings.

Ecgbert had informed Bede that he claimed the
right to visit all monasteries in his diocese, a right
which he denied to the king and nobles, except in
cases where the inmates had committed some offence
against the king himself. Bede replied that the
bishop was in consequence responsible for the state
of things which prevailed in many monasteries, and
urged him to proceed against unworthy abbats and
abbesses and also against disobedient monks.

Finally, Bede remarks, as has been said above, that
if he dealt in a similar manner with the prevailing

284 The Venerable Bede

drunkenness, gluttony, and debauchery, his letter
would be of unmeasurable length.

Bede drew, as we have seen, so dark a picture of some
of the clergy and many of the monks, that we might
naturally expect to find in other parts of Bede's writings
remarks of a similar character about lay people. But
we do not find such remarks, or we find them very
seldom. In the Ecclesiastical History there is a general
absence of contemporaneous accounts of men or women
of wicked lives, and in the Homilies there is an all but
total absence of allusion to any prevalent vices. It
may well be that Bede opened his heart to his friend
in a private letter, but did not feel called upon either
to make his History a homily against vice, or to make
his Homilies, preached to the brethren of Jarrow, a
history of the vices in the world outside.

There are, however, various indications that if
Bede had cared to do so, he might have given darker
details than he has done. We have seen1 that a
certain priest, a certain layman, and a certain woman
were specially mentioned by Drythelm as among the
shrieking crew of those whom demons were dragging
into the pit of destruction. We have seen, too, how
evil a life had been led by the military officer of King
Coenred.2 On one occasion, and only one, Bede
departs from his usual practice, and enters into a
detailed account of the evil life of a brother in a
monastery. We cannot but understand that he is
writing of a monk of Jarrow. He shall tell the tale in
his own words.

" I knew a brother myself — would God I had not
known him — a brother whom I could name if it
would profit anything. He lived in a noble monas-
1 See page 131, 2 See page 249.

The State of Morals in Bede's Time 285

tery, but he lived ignobly. He was diligently rebuked
by the brethren and by the superiors, and was ex
horted to turn to a better-disciplined life. He would
not hearken, but yet he was borne with by them
patiently, because they needed his help in temporal
matters, for he was singularly skilful as a carpenter.
He was much addicted to drunkenness and other vices.
He would rather stay in his workshop night and day,
than go to church to sing and pray and hear the word
of God with his brethren. And so it happened to him,
according to the saying, ' He that wills not into the
gates of the church of his own will in humbleness to
enter, shall needs into the gate of hell against his will in
damnation be driven/ 'He fell sick, and being at the
point to die, he called unto him the brethren, and with
much groaning, like unto one damned, he told them
that he had seen hell opened and Satan plunged in the
depths of Tartarus, and Caiaphas and the rest who slew
the Lord being tormented in the flames of vengeance.
' Nigh unto whom/ he said, ' I see a place of eternal
perdition prepared for me/ The brethren urged him
to do penance while yet he lived ; but ' No/ he said, ' I
have no time now to change my life, now that I
myself have seen mine own judgment/ Since he held
this language, he died without the viaticum of salva
tion, and his body was buried in the remotest part of
the monastery, and none presumed to say masses for
him, or to chant psalms, or even to pray/'1

We may safely conclude that this was the usual
manner of dealing with those who died impenitent
in Bede's time. And that the case of the carpenter
was not singular, we may gather from Bede's state
ment that the account of his terrible death had

1 See also page 250.

286 The Venerable Bede

brought many to do penance for their sins without
delay, and from the fervent wish he expresses that
the publication of the account in his History might
produce a like effect on others.

Though this is the only case in which Bede speaks
from his own personal experience of an evil life in a
monastery, he gives a startling account of the state of
things which prevailed among the nuns of Colding-
ham. He relates the story as it was told to him by his
most reverend fellow-presbyter Edgils, who was living
in the monastery of Coldingham at the time when the
events occurred, and afterwards lived long at Jarrow,
and died there.

There was among the inmates of Coldingham a
monk, by name Adamnan, a Scot. He had com
mitted some crime in early youth and had confessed
to a priest, offering to fast for a whole week and stand
all the night through praying. To fast for the whole
week was too much for his strength, the priest replied ;
let him fast two or three days at a time for the present ;
he would return soon and tell him what to do as a per
manency. The priest went over to Ireland and died
there, leaving Adamnan under the promise to fast
always two or three days at a time, and this promise
he kept by eating only on Thursdays and Sundays.

One day Adamnan and a companion had gone out
for some distance from the monastery, and as they
returned they marked its lofty buildings. Adamnan
wept over it, saying, " All these buildings which thou
beholdest, whether public or private, shall in no long
time be consumed with fire." The companion told
this to Abbess Ebba on their return, probably on the
principle that the inmate of a monastery is usually
accompanied by one of his colleagues when he walks

The State of Morals in Bede's Time 287

abroad, not as a check only upon his actions, but
also as a reporter if need be. Ebba not unnaturally
made further inquiries. How did he come to know
that her monastery was to be burned down ? Then
he told her. He had been busy one night in watch-
ings and psalms, when one stood by his side at whose
presence he was terrified. The visitant told him
he did well to spend his night thus ; few in that
establishment did so ; he had been round to all the
cells and the beds, and had found no one but Adamnan
occupied in heavenly things. Men and women, they
were all either sleeping idly, or awake to sin ; it may be
noted that many famous monasteries had both monks
and nuns in the early times. The very cells which
had been specially made for prayer and reading were
converted into dens for eating and drinking and story
telling, and other such things. The virgins who were
vowed to God had laid aside the reverence which was a
part of their profession, and, whenever they had any
time to spare, devoted themselves to making dresses,
to deck themselves out like brides or to obtain the
friendship of men outside. The consequence would
be, that fire would come down and devour the place.
The abbess asked why Adamnan had not spoken
sooner. Adamnan told her it was out of respect to
her ; the thing was not to happen in her time, and
he did not wish to worry her. Either she or Adam-
nan's companion told the tale, and the inmates
of the monastery were dreadfully alarmed. For a
few days they gave up their sinful life, and subjected
themselves to penance. But when the abbess died
they returned to their old ways, and just when they
were saying peace and safety, the blow fell. This
was some few years after Bede's birth.

288 The Venerable Bede

There was one order in the social scale to which
Bede made but slight personal reference, namely, the
kings. It is quite clear from the story of King Ceolwulf ,
to whom we have referred as being much interested in
Church matters, that the times were terribly troublous,
especially for kings in Northumbria. The continuator
of Bede's History gives us a brief record of events
down to 766, the death of Archbishop Ecgbert. He
has entries for each of the four years 731-734 which
elapsed between the completion of the History and the
year of Bede's death. His first entry, for the year 731,
is very startling, Ceolwulf the King was taken and
tonsured, and restored to the kingdom ; Acca the
bishop — Bede's greatest friend — was driven from his
see. If we turn to Bede's History for his remarks on
Ceolwulf (v. 23) we find that the king, to whom he
dedicated his History after its completion, had suc
ceeded to a very difficult position. " The beginning
and progress of his reign were so overfilled with dis
turbances of opponents that it was impossible to know
what ought to be written about them, or what the result
of each of the many troubles would be." William of
Malmesbury describes Ceolwulf as ascending the
shaking throne of his predecessor Osric, which Osric
had bequeathed to him, and suggests that his two
predecessors, namely Coenred his brother and Osric,
had murdered the disgraceful young man Osred, who
as a boy had succeeded his father Aldfrith on the
throne of Northumbria.

Osred was specially wicked. His wickedness was
remembered thirty years after his death, when six
German bishops, two of them English by birth, wrote
to entreat Ethelbald of Mercia to live a decent life and
enter upon a lawful marriage ; they named Osred as

The State of Morals in Bede's Time 289

the first to set a terribly bad example, the stupratio et
adulterium nonnarum. But they had worse things to
say of Europe than of England, bad as Ethelbald was
and Osred had been till his early and violent death.
" If the race of the Anglo-Saxons follow the example
set them in various parts of Europe, and enter upon
unlawful unions, and live impure lives, the race will
degenerate and the faith will be lost, as has already
happened — and from that cause — in Spain and
Provence and parts of Burgundy, at the hands of the
Saracens/' They write of meretrices, sive monasteriales
sive seculares ; and the chief of the six bishops, our
own Boniface of Crediton and Mainz, writing to Arch
bishop Cuthbert of Canterbury, begs that the English
Council will forbid the pilgrimages to Rome so often
made by women and nuns. They are mostly ruined
on the way, few remaining chaste. There are very few
cities in Lombardy, or in France, or in Gaul, where
there is not some English woman leading a life of
open sin.

Well might Bede say that it was impossible to see
what would be the result of the evil times on which
the nation had fallen. It was not till the year 793
that the Danes came and ravaged Northumbria and
destroyed the monasteries on the coast, Lindisfarne
and Wearmouth and Jarrow, but that catastrophe, all
unexpected as it was, demonstrated the correctness of
Bede's calculation in his letter to Ecgbert, that unless
some great change for the better came, the country
would find its men unable to defend it against the
barbarians. So great was the wickedness in high
places, that the change was very much for the worse.
Ceolwulf was succeeded by the excellent king Eadbert,
Ecgbert 's brother, who retired to a monastery in 758.

290 The Venerable Bede

After him came chaos, as the following summary of the
succession will show only too clearly.

Eadbert was the 2ist king, beginning with Ida who
created the kingdom in 547, giving an average of ten
years as the duration of a reign. That average in
itself is indicative of rough times for royal people. His
successors, down to the end of the kingdom of North-
umbria, fared even worse, averaging not much more
than eight years. The reigns of English kings from
William of Normandy to Edward VII, both included,
averaged twenty-three years each. Eadbert was suc
ceeded by (22) Oswulf his son, who was within a year
slain by his household officers, and was succeeded by
(23) Ethelwald, of whose parentage we do not know
anything. In 765 he was deposed by a national
assembly, and (24) Alchred was placed on the throne,
a fifth cousin of the murdered Oswulf. In 774 he was
banished and went in exile to the king of the Picts,
being succeeded .by (25) Ethelred, the son of his
deprived predecessor Ethelwald. Ethelred reigned
from 774 to 779, when in consequence of cruel murders
ordered by him he was driven out, and (26) Alfwold,
son of (22) Oswulf, and therefore of the old royal line,
succeeded. Alfwold was murdered in 788, and was suc
ceeded by (27) Osred, the son of (24) Alchred, sixth
cousin of his predecessor, and therefore of the royal
line. After a year he was deposed and tonsured,
and was eventually put to death in 792 by (25)
Ethelred, who had recovered the throne lost by his
expulsion in 779. He was killed in 796 in a faction
fight, after he had put to death the last two males,
so far as we know, of the royal line of Eadbert, ^Elf and
jElfwine, sons of (26) Alfwold. Simeon of Durham tells
us (A.D. 791) that they were persuaded by false promises

The State of Morals in Bede's Time 291

to leave sanctuary in the Cathedral Church of York ;
were taken by violence out of the city ; and miserably
put to death by Ethelred in Wonwaldrenute. He was
succeeded by (28) Osbald, of unknown parentage, but
a patrician of Northumbria ; he only reigned twenty-
seven days, fled to the king of the Picts, and died an
abbat three years later, in 799. He was succeeded by
(29) Eardulf, a patrician of the blood royal,1 who had
been left for dead by (25) Ethelred, but had recovered
when laid out for burial by the monks of Ripon. In
806 he was driven out by (30) Elfwald, of unknown
parentage, but by the help of the Emperor Charle
magne he was restored in 808. He died in 810, and
was succeeded by his son (31) Eanred, who was the last
king but one of the royal house, and the last inde
pendent king of Northumbria, dying in 840, and being
succeeded by his son (32) Ethelred II, expelled in 844,
restored in the same year, and killed sine prole in 848.
That was the inglorious end of a kingdom which had
lasted 300 years and had at more than one juncture
seemed likely to become the dominant kingdom, as
Wessex eventually did. Alcuin's letters to the kings
and chief people of Northumbria show that immor
alities were terribly rife in that order of the social
scale.

Bede's opportunities for observation of the life of
people in general were very small, and we cannot
expect to learn much from him on this point. It is
sufficient to say that a hundred years before he was
made priest the* people were wholly given up to
paganism. We have seen how on one or two occa
sions the innate paganism still showed itself. There
had not been that complete breaking off from pagan

1 We cannot trace his pedigree.

292 The Venerable Bede

rites which we might at first have expected that
the Roman missionaries would enforce. Augus
tine had specially referred the matter to Gregory,
who had replied in a spirit which has generally been
called sensible and wise, but is at least open to less
favourable judgment. If the temples of idols were
well built, the idols only were to be destroyed ; the
temples were to be purified with holy-water and kept
as churches, so that the people might continue to
frequent the accustomed places, and might hear the
truth. Men had been used to slaughter oxen to
devils at certain times. Let them still slaughter
oxen, but for festive purposes, so that on dedication
days, and nativities, and so on, they might build
huts and booths about the churches and enjoy them
selves as they had been wont ; only they must thank
God for their sustenance, and so by degrees they
would come to look upon these festivals of the Church
with Christian eyes.

To this source we must attribute such of the festivi
ties which accompany Christmas-tide as are inde
pendent of the joyousness of religious feeling. We
find these festivities mentioned in the Life of St.
Cuthbert, when the saint was entreated to come
out of his retirement and keep the feast with his
brethren. He refused for some time, but at length
he came forth and sat down with them, indulging
in a good dinner, much merriment, and story-telling.
Their enjoyment was spoiled by his mysterious hints
of something terrible, which proved to be a pestilence
that swept off almost all the brethren ; but that does
not affect the fact that Christmas Day, which coincided
with one of the great pagan festivals, was kept then
much as it is now. The use of holly and other ever-

The State of Morals in Bede's Time 293

greens is, of course, a survival of the huts made of
boughs, in which our Saxon ancestors kept their pagan
feast.

There was one part of Gregory's advice which led
to a good deal of trouble. He spoke of the people
being allowed to slaughter, for the purpose of feast
ing, the animals they had been accustomed to slay
in sacrifice to their gods. We find from various
canons of the Anglo-Saxon Church, that the love for
horse-flesh could not be eradicated. The most idola
trous sacrifice the Teutonic races could offer was a
horse, and at their most idolatrous feasts they fed
on the flesh of the horse. In times rather later than
those of Bede, when the Anglo-Saxon Church was
being put into order and was framing its laws, it
is clear that the propensity to eat horse-flesh was
looked upon as much the same thing as a propensity to
relapse into paganism, or to keep the heart of a pagan
with the name of a Christian, and it was accordingly
strongly condemned in one council after another.

CHAPTER XVII

STUDY AND MISSIONS

Enthusiasm for study — Education — The School of York — Its
masters — Alcuin — Missions, Irish influence — Egbert — Willibrord
— Boniface — Englishmen's influence on the rulers of the Franks
from Pepin to Charlemagne.

IT is natural to ask how far the example set by Bede
so early in the Christian life of the Anglo-Saxons was
followed by those who came after ; how far he can be
said to have founded, or been the precursor of, or been
an important link in, a great school of learning.

The answer to this question is easy, and is satis
factory. It is not too much to say that the Anglo-
Saxon Church in the north was in the van of learning
and study down to the sad times of the Danish inva
sions.

Beginning with the enthusiasm of Benedict Biscop
as early as 653, an enthusiasm which set the fire
burning in his young companion of travel Wilfrith, we
see that the early Northumbrian Christians were
naturally inclined to learning. Benedict's repeated
visits to Rome and Gaul furnished them with plenty
of material. He taught, as we have seen, the archi-
episcopal school at Canterbury for some two years
about 668-70, until such time as the African Hadrian
and the Greek Theodore were ready to take up the
work. With that exception, Northumbria was the
recipient of his stores of mind and material. To him

294

Study and Missions 295

Bede and all the much that he did in and for study
are directly due. The twelve volumes of Bede's
Works tell us something of what that " much " was.
Among the West Saxons, Aldhelm was a bright
early example of study and learning. He was a
generation earlier than Bede.

Educationally, we must assign a high place to
Benedict's companion Wilfrith. When he became
Bishop of York, we find that he opened a school for the
sons of — we must suppose — the people in important
position. We gather that from his invitation to
parents. Secular princes and noblemen were to
entrust their sons to his care. He would so educate
them that when the time of choice came they would
be found fitted for the work they chose, whether it was
to serve God in the ministry or to serve the king in
arms. Those of us who were educated in the School
of York regard this admirable plan of bringing all
up in one school, as an evidence that the school was in
its beginnings exactly what is meant by a public
school " as contrasted with a seminary or a secular
school.

Bede was responsible for a change in the character
of this chief school of the north. Ecgbert had told
him that he found difficulty in obtaining an adequate
supply of priests and other ministers. Bede advised
that he should take boys quite young into his cathedral
school, in earliest boyhood, and train them from the
first for the ministry. It was in this way that a little
boy by name Alcuin was taken into the school, almost
in infancy, and in this way that he was trained in
learning of all kinds, so that he became the leading
scholar of Europe, the teacher, adviser, and friend, of
Charlemagne.

296 The Venerable Bede

Ecgbert secured for his school the services of Albert
as master. If we may trust Alcuin's report, and
everything seems to confirm it, the school and the
diocese were equally fortunate in this selection of a
master. Albert was good, just, pious, and liberal ; he
taught the faith in the spirit of love ; he could be stern
to those who would not yield to his persuasion ; he was
a friend to the poor, the fatherless, the oppressed. The
youths who frequented his school had the opportunity
of studying everything that was then known. Lan
guages, then called " grammar," mathematics, natural
history, rhetoric, law, poetry, astronomy, — these and
other branches of study formed the liberal curriculum ;
and with and beyond all, the exposition of the Holy
Scriptures. Albert had a keen eye for youthful
promise, and when he found among his pupils one of
whom he thought that he might make a scholar or an
eminent Christian, he took all possible pains with
him. He travelled on the Continent in search of
additional means and improved methods of instruc
tion ; he visited Rome as the centre of the Western
Church. On his return, the kings of the south would
fain have kept him among them, but he remained
true to his home at York, and took up again his inter
rupted task of teaching. What his learning was,
and his zeal in collecting the means of study, may
be gathered from the abridged list of the books in his
possession at the time when he retired from active
life, which his pupil and successor and biographer,
Alcuin, has left us. There were writings of Roman
historians, philosophers, and poets ; the philosophical
writings of Aristotle ; treatises on grammar ; the
works of his countrymen, Aldhelm, Bede, and Willi-
brord ; and, best of all, a goodly collection of the

Study and Missions 297

fathers, — Basil, Athanasius, Chrysostom, Hilary,
Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome, Leo, Gregory, and
others. They were so numerous that he had built a
library for them.

On Ecgbert's death, the popular voice designated
Albert, who, like Ecgbert, was of the royal race, as his
successor in the archbishopric. He became arch
bishop, and abundantly proved the wisdom of the
choice. Alcuin tells us how, like a good shepherd,
he fed his flock with the food of the Divine Word ;
how he guarded the lambs from the wolf, and bore
on his shoulders the sheep that had gone astray.
He did not allow the manifold affairs of his high
position to curtail his study of the Scriptures. He
boldly rebuked vice, whether in the person of com
moner, earl, or king.

For ten years he retained the headship of the school
along with the archbishopric. He then determined
to resign both, and to retire into private life in the
monastery. His two favourite pupils succeeded him,
Eanbald as archbishop, Alcuin as head of the cathedral
school. And Alcuin is by far the most prominent figure
in the educational progress of the Western world in
those times.

Alcuin was born about the year of Bede's death, or
seven years before that event, if the later date of 742
A.D. be accepted for the year of his death. He was
educated under Albert at York, and became, as we
have seen, Albert's successor. He was already famous
for his learning, not in England only, but on the
Continent ; so much so, that when he went to Rome
to obtain the pall for Eanbald of York, Albert's
successor in the archbishopric, Charlemagne per
suaded him to take charge of the education of his

298 The Venerable Bede

sons, with all the educational affairs of his vast
empire. Alcuin received the consent of his own king
and the archbishop before accepting Charlemagne's
offer ; and he became the master of the palatine or
court school at Paris, and Minister of Education for
the Franks. One of his first cares was to remedy a
specially evil result of the anarchy which had for so
many years prevailed in the countries which Charle
magne had at last brought to something like order.
The copies of the Scriptures and of service books
had in many places disappeared altogether ; in other
places there were very inferior and incorrect copies,
made by ignorant hands. Alcuin examined some of
the best manuscripts, and then had them copied in
large numbers, and the copies were sent out to cathe
drals and important churches and abbeys, where they
were still further multiplied. When this great work
was accomplished, Alcuin set about furnishing the
empire with the means of acquiring secular know
ledge. He did not find in all France, and of course
not in Germany, any such libraries as he had left in
several places in England. He obtained permission
from Charlemagne to send over some of his own
pupils to England to copy the chief treasures in the
library at York, which he knew so well.1 And thus
Saxon England gave to France — and in a less degree
to Germany — the learning which it had itself derived
from Theodore and Hadrian in the years preceding
the birth of Bede. Theodore landed in England in
668 A.D., and found England in a state of ignorance ;
and in less than a hundred and twenty years his work
had borne such fruit that Englishmen were at the head

1 A fuller statement of Alcuin 's unique work and position will be
found in Alcuin of York, G. F. Browne, 1908.

Study and Missions 299

of learning in the Western world. We have seen how
important a part Northumbria played in the pioneer
work at Canterbury in the person of Benedict Biscop.

If we were to pass on to consider what the Christian
world of Europe and of England owed — and still owes
— to Alcuin for his labours in liturgiology, in church
music, in details of Eucharistic Services, in the domi
nant use of the Psalms in services and especially in
daily private life, a book might well be written on this
branch alone of the flowers and fruits that the School
of York produced for the Christian world in great
abundance and of a high degree of excellence.

The Northumbrians were also — and no more fitting
conclusion could be found for remarks on the state of
England in the seventh and eighth centuries — at the
head of missionary enterprise in Europe. It would
appear that they caught the mission fever from the
Irish, and with their practical instinct they made their
work solid and stable, built on foundations sure and
strong. The Irish, on the other hand, for the most part
did not settle down and solidify, except when they
found themselves among a solid people, as at St. Gall,
and then they were absorbed, and continued to be an
element of great value.

A Northumbrian noble, born in 639, thirteen years
after the first conversion of Northumbria, so that his
parents had certainly been pagans, was moved by his
love of study and his zeal for learning, left his native
country, and went to Ireland to profit by the teaching
of learned men there, of whom there were many.
It was a fashion in those very early days of Anglo-
Saxon Christianity to go to Ireland for purposes of
study and devotion.1 Egbert, to retain that spelling

1 St. Aldhelm of Malmesbury, G. F. Browne, passim.

3OO The Venerable Bede

to avoid confusion with Ecgbert the Northumbrian
prelate, was only twenty years of age when he went
to Ireland in the year 659, five years before the Synod
of Whitby, and therefore at a time when the Irish
(Scotic) influence was very strong in Northumbria,
and there was much coming and going between the
two islands. He took with him Ceadda, afterwards St.
Chad, and several others. In course of time he caught
the zeal for missions which had been strong in Ireland
for a long time. Columban and Gall had left Ireland
together in 585, twelve years before Augustine brought
Christianity to the Anglo-Saxons, and had gone to the
country which we now call Switzerland, Columban
pushing on thirty years later to Bobio, or Bobbio,
which became a place famous in Irish and Anglo-
Saxon literature.

Egbert determined to lead a party from Ireland, in
687, just a hundred years after Columban and Gall
went, but not to follow in their steps. He thought of
the pagan peoples in the north of the great territory
which was known as Germania, who were the cousins
of Angles and Saxons and Jutes, and he desired to
take to them the blessings of the pure and wholesome
religion which was spreading so fast in the Angle-land.
If he could not accomplish that, he would go on to
Rome, to the thresholds of the blessed Apostles and
Martyrs, the twin chiefs of the Apostles, Peter and
Paul ; or, as the early Irish ritual books put it, Paul
and Peter, following Eusebius, as did the old Slavonic
ritual books.

He was not to carry out either plan. The violence
of storms and the warnings of visions forced him to
remain in Ireland ; but in the year 690 he sent out
Willibrord, whom he had brought from Ripon, with

Study and Missions 301

eleven companions, to Frisia, large part of which has
been washed away since, leaving only the present
Holland. Willibrord had great success. He was
admitted to very friendly relations with the powerful
Mayor of the Palace, Pepin d'Heristal, who conquered
the Frisians, and by Pepin 's son Charles Martel who
saved Europe from the Saracens by the great battle of
Tours. When Charles Martel's son Pepin le Bref was
born, Willibrord was invited to perform the ceremony
of baptism. The fort and city now known as Utrecht
were given to Willibrord and he became Archbishop
there, dying at an advanced age about the time of
Bede's death. Pope Sergius had given him the name
Clemens. Wilfrith of York, under whose tuition Willi
brord had been in his early years at Ripon, had at one
stage of his fitful career been cast upon the shores of
Frisia, and had converted multitudes of pagans there.
Two Saxon monks, Hewald the white and Hewald the
black, had got through to Saxony and preached Chris
tianity there. They were martyred near Cologne, in
the year 695. The Friesland mission pushed its work
even into Prussia, and with fair success ; but political
changes broke up the mission for a time. Winfrid of
Crediton, a monk of Exeter, joined Willibrord at
Utrecht about the year 716. He preached in Hesse and
in Friesland. In 723 he was consecrated by Gregory II
as missionary bishop of the Germans east of the Rhine,
under the name of Boniface. For thirty years he
laboured in this vast and dangerous sphere, keeping
up a constant correspondence with the Pope, to whom
he wrote with a frankness which few correspondents
of popes have used. He held the great archiepiscopal
see of Mainz, and was martyred at length in the year
755 at Dockum, in East Friesland. He was succeeded

302 The Venerable Bede

Sit Mainz by Lul, a monk from Malmesbury, who had
studied at Jarrow. Both Boniface and Lul owed much
to Bede, whose works "they used.1

It is much to the credit of our Anglo-Saxon ancestors
that these great missionaries developed remarkable
powers of statesmanship and had an instinctive skill in
dealing with important civil and military authorities
which enabled them to exercise large influence in the
highest quarters. Englishmen had the ear of Pepin
d'Heristal, Charles Martel, Pepin le Bref, Charlemagne,
the four generations of men from father to son who
created mediaeval Europe. The three Englishmen
were, Willibrord named Clemens, Winfrid named
Boniface, and Alcuin. It was in concert with Boniface
and the Pope that Pepin le Bref emerged from his
mayoralty and dukedom and became King of the
Franks. Alcuin played his part in concert with Charle
magne in the course which led Karl from kingship
to empire. From the year 690 to the year 804, the
only years in which those four rulers had not a power
ful Englishman always at hand were the years
between 755, the martyrdom of Boniface, and 782
when Karl persuaded Alcuin of York to become his
chief adviser, especially in educational affairs, but as a
matter of fact in affairs of all kinds. It adds much to
the interest of this, that the last of the three advisers
wrote the life of the first of the three, and that on the
ground of relationship. Alcuin tells us that Willi
brord was the son of Wilgils, who lived a religious life
with his wife and all his house, and eventually lived a
solitary life on the promontory between the sea and
the Humber, no doubt the present Spurn Point. The
great men of the realm gave Wilgils some small neigh-
1 See Boniface of Crediton, G. F. Browne, pages 229 etc.

Study and Missions 303

bouring properties that he might build a church.
Here he collected a congregation of servants of God,
and " his descendants to this day hold the property by
title of his sanctuary, of whom I am the least in merit
and the last in order. I who write this book of the
history of the most holy father and greatest teacher
Willibrord, succeeded to the government of that small
cell by legitimate degrees of descent." It is un
necessary to dwell upon the interest of that statement,
quite apart from its extrene interest as an evidence of
the near kinship of Willibrord and Alcuin.

CHAPTER XVIII

ANGLO-SAXON ART

Art work in gems and precious metals — Silks — Pictures — Geog
raphy — Sculptured stones — Classes of objects — Churchyards —
Classes of surface ornamentation — The human figure — The tree
of life — The interlacements — Dragonesque interlacements — Irish
examples — Caledonian Rets — The Lindisfarne Gospels — Com
parison with the Book of Kells.

IT seems impossible to part with our Northumbrian
ancestors without saying something of their successful
study of art, for which they evidently had an instinc
tive love and a racial aptitude.

We have seen in what glowing terms Eddi describes
the ornamentation of the Church of Ripon. He rings
the changes on gold and silver and purple and jewels ;
a purple altar cloth inwoven with gold ; the Four
Gospels in purest gold, on purpled parchment, illumin
ated ; a case to contain the Four Gospels which he had
ordered the setters of gems to construct of the purest
gold and most precious jewels. This splendid collec
tion of the gospels was no doubt suggested to his
mind by the fact that on his earliest visit to Rome,
while yet a layman, he had gone first to the church
of the monastery of St. Andrew, had there seen on the
high altar a Gospel-book, and had prayed that he
might have grace to teach the Gospel to the races at
home. Later on, Eddi tells how Bishop Acca enriched
Wilfrith's church at Hexham with gold and silver and
jewels and purple and silk, with a splendour which

304

Anglo-Saxon Art 305

no words could describe. We shall see how the work
men at Wilfrith's early home at Lindisfarne carried
out Wilfrith's idea of splendour in the covers of their
own Lindisfarne gospel-books.

Skilled workmanship in the precious metals, and in
the setting of gems, continued to be in large demand
in England. Examples are to be found in the museums.
We have among other such treasures in the British
Museum the gold ring of King Ethelwulf, Alfred's
father ; and in the Bodleian collection there is Alfred's
own jewel, of gold and enamel, with its open-work
gallery of inscription, >fr Aelfred mec heht gewyrcan,
Alfred made work me.

The inscription of Ethelwulf s ring, in gold letters
on a niello ground, is ^ Ethelwulf R, the cross, in
each case, being of four equal arms. These two beauti
ful works of art have two close connections with
one another, palaeographical and ornamental, besides
the natural fact that the W is in each case a double
capital V. On Ethelwulfs ring the HE is one bind-
letter, the second upright of the H forming the up
right of the E. The use of bind-letters occurs three
times in the Alfred jewel. The second upright of the
M forms the upright of E, the second upright of the
first H forms the upright of E as on Ethelwulfs ring,
and the second upright of the second H is crossed at
the top and so the bind-letter HT is formed. It is a
curious fact, often illustrated in early Welsh rude
inscriptions on stones, but startling on a beautiful
piece of gold work like this, that the T of Ethelwulf is
upside down. The other close connection, in orna
ment, is typical of a long continuity. A plant stem
springs from a central root and divides the field in
two. In the Ethelwulf ring, the upper part of which

306 The Venerable Bede

is triangular, two birds' heads come together at the
top, one on each side, and the bodies and wings and
tails of the birds swell out and occupy the lower parts
of the triangle. In the Alfred jewel, which is almond-
shaped, the point downwards, highly ornamental
floral ornament takes the place of the birds' heads,
and symmetrical foliage occupies the lower part on
either side. The socket into which the pointer of
ivory or precious wood fitted, which still has its rivet,
is another example of continuity of type. It is the
snout of a very carefully executed dragon's head.

The natural and rapidly increasing demand for
crosses pectoral and processional, for reliquaries,
for lamps, for sacred vessels, for all the varied orna-
menta of the altar, acted as a perpetual stimulus to the
development of beauty in design and skill in the exe
cution of works in gold and silver and gems. Plates
7 and 8 show us simple and very early examples of
gold work and silver work.

Robes of silk, magnificently ornamented, have
always had a great vogue, in West and East alike.
The sight of the Prelate of the Order of St. Michael
and St. George, moving in procession down the aisle
of St. Paul's in this present year of grace, is a sufficient
indication of the continuance of the vogue. How
strongly such magnificence appealed to our earliest
Christian ancestors is shown by the fact mentioned
on page 124, that the Northumbrian king and his
councillors gave a considerable area of land to Benedict
Biscop for two royal pallia made entirely of silk and
worked in an incomparable manner. There was no
lack of continuity in this respect among our ancestors.

Pictorial art had from the very first a strong appeal
to the Anglo-Saxon instinct. A picture of the Saviour,

Anglo-Saxon Art 307

and a processional cross, were the first Christian
appeals to the eyes of those who became the first
English converts. It is difficult for us to realise the
vast importance of pictorial representations of the
details of the Christian story, in an age when scarcely
anyone outside the ministry could read at all, and
when the gospels were open books to those only who
could read and understand Latin. We have seen how
completely Biscop and Wilfrith realised this value of
pictures, and how'fully they acted upon it. The taste
for pictorial representation did not end with the
Christian story. Geographical representations fetched
an even larger price than royal pallia, as we have seen
on page 124.

Among the principal remains of Anglo-Saxon Art
which we possess, the sculptural stones rank high.
Generalising from the specimens of the art of stone-
carving which have come down to us through all the
vicissitudes of war, vandalism, neglect, and decay,
England must have been in many parts a great treasure
house of art when the Normans came and dealt destruc
tion. The occupying of the surfaces of squared or
cylindrical shafts with ornament had been carried
in the earliest Christian times to a high pitch of excel
lence. The excellence would seem to have disappeared
under the Danish invasions, and to have been replaced
by a dullness and rudeness which speak eloquently
of the dearth and death of the religious fervour which
had spiritualised the work of the early carvers. North-
umbria was the land of origin of the highest art ; the.
lands of the Mercians, who like the Northumbrians
were Angles, cannot have been much behind Northum-
bria ; and in the land of the West Saxons we still
have a considerable number of bold examples of the

308 The Venerable Bede

surface ornament of the earliest Christian times in
England.

There were two main classes of objects of worked
stone to which the art of surface ornamentation could
be freely applied in the early times of English Chris
tianity. The one was the shafts of standing crosses
and the bases on which the shafts stood. The other
was the solid stones, resembling the lower part of
standing cross-shafts of large section, which the
itinerant priest set up at each place of which he took
possession as a Christian centre. The stone marked
the place where he would come on his rounds for
preaching and baptising. It served as the altar on
which he would place the small consecrated portable
altar he carried with him for celebrating the sacred
mysteries. We have a graphic account of Bishop
Wilfrith, about the year 667, taking with him, from
his home at Ripon in Northumbria, a party of work
men, carpenters and stonecutters, and setting up
memorials at his halting-places as he traversed the
thinly populated lands of the Mercian Angles. So
far as the standing crosses are concerned, we know
that in the year 709 they set up in Somerset and Wilts
seven stone crosses, all perfect in William of Malmes-
bury's time, say 1130, one at each of the seven places
where the body of Aldhelm rested for the night on its
fifty miles' journey from Doulton in Somerset to
Malmesbury in Wilts. The practice of setting up great
stone crosses beautifully sculptured must have become
usual before such crosses could be erected in such
numbers for one occasion. If the crosses of which
there are remains at two likely villages in North
Wilts are, as I believe them to be, examples of these
seven Aldhelm crosses, the memorials when complete

Anglo-Saxon Art 309

must have been magnificent. There are some six feet
of the shaft at Littleton Drew, with remains of an
inscription in very bold Latin capitals. The small
fragments at Colerne have lacertine interlacements
of perfect delicacy of design and workmanship. The
magnificent high-crosses in the market-place at Sand-
bach in Cheshire are a noble relic of antiquity. At
least as noble, and in higher art, are the great stand
ing crosses at Ruthwell in Dumfries and Bewcastle in
Cumberland.

The sculptured cross of Christ and the sculptured
altar, at the place where the itinerant priest took his
stand, would naturally be the centre for the burial
of the faithful departed. It would thence be sur
rounded by a ring or more probably a square of rude
stone walls. When in the course of time a church
came to be built, a place would naturally be selected
within the walls where the foundations would not dis
turb the bodies of the dead, and where the building
would not prevent the rays of the sun from playing
upon the place of their burial. The extreme north
of the enclosure would alone meet those conditions,
and there the church was built centrally. This accounts
for the churchyard cross in very ancient churchyards
being opposite the south door of entrance of the
church, and being at the centre of the churchyard. It
accounts also for the traditional objection on really
ancient sites to burying on the north side of the
church, which was originally beyond the consecrated
area. The ceremony for the consecration of a cemetery
in Ecgbert's Pontifical of the first half of the eighth
century completely carries out these suggestions,
especially as regards the square shape and the altar
at the central point of the cemetery. From this it

310 The Venerable Bede

follows that if on a really early site the church is in the
centre of the churchyard and there is no feeling against
burying on the north side, the building of the earliest
church and the earliest enclosure of the churchyard
were simultaneous. The church and churchyard
of Ham in Staffordshire afford an excellent example
of the earlier arrangement, the growth of the cemetery
to begin with, and the erection of the first church later.1

We have seen that Bishop Wilfrith took about with
him in Mercia — his own large possessions were chiefly
in the county of Northampton — skilled workers in
stone, whose business it would be to shape and orna
ment the crosses and the altars at the successive preach
ing centres. We shall see that there still remain
examples in the district of his visit.

There were three styles of art for such purposes as those
here described. One, which very soon lost the wonder
ful perfection of its very earliest time in this country,
was the representation of the figures of Our Lord and
His Saints, and important personages. We have this
type of art in perfection on the Bewcastle2 and Ruth-
well3 crosses, in Cumberland and Dumfries respec
tively, where the figure of Our Lord is of very striking
dignity, somewhat lessened by the loss of the right
hand, which was raised in blessing. The period of this
Art was very short ; it may be doubted whether it
had any real continuity beyond the generation which
designed and executed the two examples named, pre
sumably foreigners of Graeco-Byzantine and Near-East
training.

A second style of art represented arabesques of

1 See my Sculptured Stonts of Ilam , Bell and Sons.
8 Pages 78, 175 and Plate 4.
3 Pages 79, 178, and Plate 15.

Anglo-Saxon Art 311

flowers and tendrils and stems, with fruit in the
tendrils and birds and other creatures feeding on the
fruits, a veritable tree of life. At Bewcastle and Ruth-
well these trees of life run up the edges of the shaft. We
must again trace this second style to a Graeco-Byzan-
tine or Near -Eastern (arabesque) origin. The ivory
chair of Archbishop Maximianus (546-556) at Ravenna,
in the Church of S. Vitale, is practically covered with
examples of just the tree of life which we find at
Bewcastle and Ruthwell. The inspiration of those
crosses, and probably the sculptors, came from
Ravenna or from some part of Lombardy, perhaps
Brescia. It is evident that this style of ornamental
foliage arabesque, with or without living creatures, is
suited equally for vertical and horizontal application.
It does not present the difficulty in drawing which the
forms of living creatures present, and the remains
which we possess show that it was generally popular
with our ancestors, and at many periods was creditably
designed and executed, at some periods with exquisite
skill. The symbolism of this style of religious orna
mentation may carry us in one or all of three directions.
It may suggest the general feature of the Garden of
Eden, " every tree that is pleasant to the eye and good
for food," or the special feature of the tree " in the
midst of the garden, the tree of life," the lignum vitce
of the Vulgate, so apt a subject for the shaft of the
cross of which it was a forecast ; or it may symbolise
the Kingdom of Heaven, growing on and on from a
minute grain till it becomes the greatest among herbs,
a tree such that " the birds of the air come and lodge
in the branches thereof." And considering the remark
able popularity which the Song of Songs attained and
maintained among our early Anglian ancestors, the

312 The Venerable Bede

presence of little quadrupeds makes it natural to see
some reference to that great song of love, " take us the
foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines, for our
vines have tender grapes." The Oriental origin of
this type of ornament, which got such hold upon
the Anglian mind, renders this reference specially
probable.

There remains a third style, which may be described
in one word, interlacement. This style affords scope
for quite endless variations. The most subtle, the most
delicate, the most elegant results can be attained. The
predominant characteristic of this style, as carried out
in early England, Ireland, and Caledonia, is the end
lessness, the infinity, of the designs. Passing ever
alternately under and over itself, one endless band —
or the superposition of two endless bands — fills panels
of surface with perpetual interlacements, forming now
the circumference — skilfully broken — now the diameter
of a circle and then passing on to form another like
combination, till the whole panel is occupied in a
beautiful maze by the endless band. It is a symbol
of eternity.

This style subdivides into two. The one is the inter
lacement of one band, or of two, sometimes representing
merely a piece of basketwork, sometimes producing
the patterns described in the previous paragraph.
The other is the interlacement of the bodies and limbs
of lacertine creatures and serpentine quadrupeds. We
may deal with the two styles separately. Figure 2
on Plate 17 is an illustration of the effectiveness
and subtlety of this development of the main idea
of the interlacement of bands. This and the other
panels on Plate 17 are from the collection of great stand
ing crosses at Kells in Ireland, the monastery made

Anglo-Saxon Art 313

famous for ever by its production of the Book of
Kells, referred to on page 321. The actual panels on
the stones do not present at all the same clearness as
the illustrations, or anything like it. Each panel has
cost a good deal of labour in its interpretation. Rub
bings were taken, the interlacements outlined after
much study on the spot of the stone and of the
rubbing, and then photographed down to their
present size. The great reduction in scale has
obliterated the roughnesses of my outlines of the
interlacements.

It may be mentioned incidentally that all of these
three panels produce a beautiful effect in embroidery,
say of gold thread on yellow-cream silk. Many of the
patterns from sculptured stones are being wrought in
schools of art-work, in embroidery, and in wood and
metal.

While the west side of the Bewcastle shaft on
Plate 4 gives us beautiful examples of the human form
in high relief, and, incidentally, the earliest original
piece of Anglo-Saxon prose in existence, the south
side, on Plate 18, carries us further into the art
which was locally continuous. There are three panels
of interlacement, two of them very simple, the lowest
an effective example of the interlacements of a double
band. There is also a sundial, in accordance with
very early custom in connection with Saxon churches.
And there are two panels of foliage ornament of the
tree-of-life character. These two panels are of funda
mental interest. They give us original examples of the
two kinds of tree of life, the upper springing from one
root, the other from two. We have examples of the
development of both of these two kinds, the latter
especially giving rise to patterns of beautiful interlace-

314 The Venerable Bede

ment of the details of the two trees, an art which
received its highest development in the exquisite
cross of Bishop Acca of Hexham, now in the dorter at
Durham. The single tree of life shown on Plate 16
can be seen on the edge of the shaft on Plate 18.
There is in the dorter at Durham a considerable
portion of a very early Anglian cross-shaft, Plate 16,
said to be a part of Ethelwold's cross, the whole
cross having been standing, and known as St. Ethel-
wold's, up to and beyond the time of the Reformation
with its terrible destruction of the priceless things of
early art. The upper and lower panels are of ordinary
interlacement, the lower resembling the panel at the
foot of the Bewcastle shaft on Plate 18. The central
panel is a battered example of the interlacement of
two dragonesque creatures, the tail and hind-leg and
fore-leg of each being conspicuous. Considering the
special beauty of Ethelwold's cross, as mentioned at
page 318, we cannot say that these panels justify the
traditional assignment of this fragment. But it may be
that there was something specially beautiful in the
contemporary form of the cross when complete. This
suggestion falls in with the original statement that the
upper part of the cross was blown off in a gale of
wind, and a skilful workman invented a method of
fastening it on again by the use of molten lead.

Figures i and 3 on Plate 17 are apt illustrations of
two kinds of lacertine or dragonesque interlacements.
The panel shown in Figure i presented considerable
difficulties in the way of interpretation. It is probably
correct, with one exception due to a natural difficulty,
the difficulty of being sure whether a dragon's tongue
is projecting from his mouth, or another dragon's tail
is being held in his mouth. If we name the two heads

Anglo-Saxon Art 315

at the top of the panel A and B, from left to right, and
the two at the bottom C and D, it would appear that
what is drawn as a tail in A's mouth must be meant
for A's tongue. With that correction, it will be seen
that the panel is analysed thus : —

A's tail is in D's mouth. A's tongue ends in a fish
tail at the back of D's head. B's fish-tail crosses C's
neck. C's tail, after a long journey all over the panel,
is developed into a head in C's own mouth. D's tail
is in B's mouth.

In the panel shown in Figure 3, the crest, neck, fore
leg, body, hind-leg, and tail, of each of the four dragons
are used as interlacing bands, passing alternately
under and over. This is an unusually non-subtle
arrangement, but it is very effective. There is a Celtic
quaintness about these two figures.

Figure 2 on Plate 17 is an example of the higher
style of the art of interlacements. It is not in the
highest style, for the interlacing bands do not form
alternately diameters and circumferences, nor do they
form alternately circumferences of outer and inner
circles. But this is in considerable part due to the
fact that eight out of nine of the circle systems are
at the edges of the panel, and thus the bands have to
be continually turning back instead of going straight
on towards another circle system. We have in the
. public street of Stapleford, Notts, a cylindrical pillar
with fifteen of these circle systems, and there the law
of alternate circumference and diameter, and alternate
inner and outer circumference, is most skilfully
observed.

The figure under discussion is Irish. There are
many such examples in Ireland, at Monasterboice,
Termonfechin, and other centres of early remains. In

3i 6 The Venerable Bede

the Pictish parts of Scotland there is a great abundance
of elaborate examples ; while on the Scottish side of
Caledonia there is very little indeed of this elaborate
art of interlacement. The probability is that frequent
invasions killed old schools of art and introduced new
styles, so far as England was concerned, while the
freedom of Ireland and Caledonia from such disturb
ances and destructions left the artistic mind free to
study and to develop to its higher possibilities the
attractive art, which was their chief style of ornamenta
tion. A similar consideration explains the scarcity —
even in Northumbria — of complete monuments with
this style of ornament in England, as compared with
Ireland and Caledonia.

The emphasis on the Pictish (eastern) parts of Cale
donia as compared with the Scottish (western) parts
can scarcely mean anything other than a continuance
of the art which so much struck the Roman soldiery,
the art of painting on the bodies of the Picts the
figures of animals and other decorations. The sculp
tured stones which are so numerous in the Pictish
lands, and some of them so magnificent, carry elaborate
interlacements in the highest style, forming the head
and arms and shaft and centre of large crosses in high
relief on great erect flat stones. And not elaborate
interlacements only but horses and hounds and deer
and many kinds of symbolic ornaments. They must
be the application to stone monuments of the art
originally painted on the naked body of the Pict, an
art so striking that the Roman soldiers of Stilicho
A.D. 399 paused in the midst of battle to study the
figures on the bodies of the fallen foe. Stilicho had
with him in his invasion of Caledonia a martial poet,
Claudian. Claudian has made the fact and character

Anglo-Saxon Art 317

of the Pictish art immortal. He shows us the Roman
soldier, wondering,

Perlegit exsangues Picto moriente figuras.

We, too, stand and wonder, as we gaze at these very
same figures wrought in relief on stone, either at iso
lated places in Perthshire and Forfar and Kincardine
and up to Elgin, or in the great group at Meigle, once
the royal residence of the Pictish kings of the south
east of Caledonia.

There are, as has been said above, a considerable
number of early pre-Conquest sculptures on the faces
of cross-shafts in the West Saxon and British parts
of Wilts and Somerset and Devon. The dragonesque
style is the prevailing type there. At Colerne, Dolt on,
Ramsbury, Rowberrow, West Camel, examples are
to be found. At Gloucester, too, there is a very fine
example of involved dragons. Bearing in mind
Harold's Dragon Standard in the Bayeux worsted-
work, and the Dragon Standard of Wales, it is tempting
to imagine that the pairs of interlaced dragons found
on one early stone after another in those parts had
some relation to the tug- of- war when Bret dragon met
West Saxon dragon. At West Camel, one of the finest
of the dragonesque stones, there is a very unusual
combination of a panel of interlacing tendrils springing
successively from a central stem on the principle of
foliage ornament. This same feature is found on
the massive shaft at Littleton Drew in North Wilts,
the ornamentation of which is, so far as I know,
unique. x

In the long wanderings of the monks of Lindisfarne

1 Figures of the stones mentioned here are to be found in a
chapter on the subject which I contributed to the Memorials of Old
Wilts, Bemrose and Sons, 1906.

3i8 The Venerable Bede

with St. Cuthbert's coffin after the destruction of the
monastery by the Danes, they carried with them two
great treasures of art, Ethelwold's stone cross and the
Lindisfarne Gospels. The cross was erected by
Bishop Ethelwold in his lifetime, and was so ex
quisitely ornamented with the best art of the period,
724-740, that they could not bear to leave it behind
them. What that art was we can learn with cer
tainty from the Lindisfarne Gospels.

A passage inserted at the end of the Gospel of
St. Matthew tells us how this beautiful book was
built up. " Eadfrith bishop of the church of Lindis
farne [698 to 721] he wrote this book at first for God
and the holy Cuthbert and all the saints that are in
the island and Ethelwold the bishop of Lindisfarne
island he made it firm outside and bound it as he well
could. Bilfrith the anchorite wrought in smith's
work the ornaments that were on the outside with
gold and gems and silver overlaid a treasure without
deceit. And Aldred the presbyter unworthy and
most miserable glossed it in English/' We may
be sure that Aldred wrote this passage. The glori
ous cover, with its gold and jewels, has completely
disappeared. The book itself is in the British
Museum.

Plate 19, showing the ornamental page at the
beginning of the Gospel of St. Luke, gives us good
examples of the interlacements of endless bands
and the entanglements of^j dragonesque interlace
ments.

The interlacements of a double band which run
into all the beautifully formed cross in the^ centre
is a remarkable piece of work. It is a serious "matter
to follow with the eye these interlacements, with

Anglo-Saxon Art 319

their alternate crossings under and over. The number
of these crossings is uncountable, and they never fail
to observe the law of alternation. We may well
wonder at the skill shown in this design ; but the
skill in execution, with such instruments and pigments
and inks as they had then, seems more wonderful still.
The eyesight and the manual firmness of draughts
manship of our ancestors must have been supremely
good. There are cases elsewhere in which spirals
like watch-springs seem to the modern eye to come
to a mere blur in the centre, while the application of
magnifying power reveals the spiral still working
smaller and smaller in what seems to our unaided
eye to be a mere blur of paint. Notice should be
taken of the rule of endless continuity as worked out
by the two light-coloured edges of the dark land which
enclosed the whole magnificent work. They play off
at the centres of the ends and sides to form the out
lines of the throat and crest of the pairs of dragons'
heads.

The six inset rectangular panels give four different
examples of the involvement of quadruped dragons,
in some of the panels biting their own bodies, in others
biting each other's bodies. The long necks and power
ful fore-quarters and hind-quarters are conspicuous in
the four corner panels, with crests and tails to form
the finer entanglements. The panel in the bottom
left-hand corner best shows the usual and curiously
expressive manner of indicating a joint as a spiral
spring. The entanglements of birds in the four
projecting corners are well worth study. It will be
seen that the outline of the body and the tapering tail
of the bird form double bands for the interlacing
entanglements.

32 o The Venerable Bede

The diamond-shaped panels of key pattern are
another expression of endlessness. The remainder of
the background is in colour which photography shows
as nearly black.

The only connection with Irish ornamentation
in this splended piece of work is found in the four
whorls in the centre of the leaf.

Plate 20 shows another of the leaves of the Lindis-
farne Gospels. This is one of the most splendid things
of the kind ever done, so far as our sadly limited
examples of the perished splendours of illumination
of those " dark " ages carries us.

Our study of the dragonesque interlacements in the
central circle and the five horse-shoes of the cross
is greatly aided by the fact that in each case there are
two pairs of dragons painted in two different colours.
They have long necks and bodies, with crests and tails
that provide hampering interlacements, and two fore
legs, and two hind-legs ; thus each has seven members.
The skill with which the patterns are worked into
continuity at the five narrow necks connecting the
central circle and the five horse-shoes should be specially
noticed.

The parts outside the cross are greatly enriched
by the introduction of gracefully shaped birds with
painted wings. These are specially well shown in the
right-hand lower corner. The birds have necks, and
beaks that grasp in some cases their own neck, in
other cases the bodies of serpentine quadrupeds.
The birds have legs of a different colour, and the
outline of their bodies and their tapering tails provide
entangling interlacements. The lacertine quadrupeds
have crests, and a fore-leg and two bold and well-
drawn hind-legs, and a tail. The eight birds in the

Anglo-Saxon Art 321

lowest corner, four in a row above and four in a row
below, with their free-sweeping tails, form a wonderful
picture in the colours of the original. ^jUf-V' i'

The projecting corner-pieces are full of minute inter
lacements which the small scale of the plate fails to

•

The whole is Anglo-Saxon work, not Irish. The
basic motives are similar, or come from the same
source or from cognate sources, but the working out
of the motives is Anglian, not Celtic.

To study the stately illuminated pages of the
Lindisfarne Gospels, and then to pass immediately
to the study of the Irish Book of Kells, is to pass from
order to chaos. Splendid as that Book is in design
and colouring, there is lacking almost throughout
the evidence of a master mind, intent upon securing
balance and producing an effect of perfect continuity
and equilibrium. There are endless pieces of beautiful
pattern ; but not so arranged as to give harmony to
the page. Some of the great collection of patterns
on a leaf are spoiled by the presence of human faces
and profiles, alike queer without being quaint, and
mostly ugly. There are fifteen such profiles on one
ornamental leaf, in three panels of five each. On
another leaf there are fifteen or sixteen human forms,
many of them in pairs, with their legs ridiculously
used for interlacements. On one splendid page there
is enclosed in a corner of the splendours a curious
scene, two cats lying down facing one another. Stand
ing on each cat is a rat. Between the cats there are
two rats, biting at what must be meant for a wafer.
All that would have been impossible at Lindisfarne.
Anglian Art strikes the same sound note as Anglian
history. Our ancestors were men of dignity.

322 The Venerable Bede

And so we take leave of our Anglian forefathers, at
the time when they were the leaders of the Western
world in divine and secular learning and in missionary
and political work. In so regarding them and rejoicing
in them, we would fain shut out of our thoughts the
terrible breakdown that the early future had in store
for them.

INDEX

Abercorn, 90, 101

Acca, 165, 237, 314

Adamnan, abbat, 55-57, 100 ;
monk, vision by, 287

Adda, 63

Addi, Earl, 274

JElfric, 246

^Elfwine, 77

./Etius, 102

JEtna, Mt., 225, 226

Agatho, Pope, 8, 182

Agilbert, 71

Agostoli, 226

Aidan, ch. iii

Akeburgh, 43

Albert, 296, 297

Albums, 99

Alchfrith, 64, 70, 71, 77-79, 113,
118, 144

Alcluith, 101

Alcuin, i, 2, 135, 1 86, 188, 198-
203, 296-299

Aldfrith, 55, 156, 182-184

Aldhelm, i, 2, 182, 205-210, 308

Alfred, king, 97 ; his jewel, 305

Alne river, 154

Altars, portable, 164, 165

Ambrose, 222

Amiatinus, Codex, 133-135, 170

Anatollus, 73

Angels, at services in church,
136 ; on horseback, 140

Anglo-Saxon, heptarchy, 23,
24 ; genealogies, 24 ; sum
mary of conversions, 92—94 ;
Bede's one word of, 273 ;
leechdoms, 273-276

Annus Domini, source of dating
from, 219, 220

Apostate kings, 49

Appeals to Rome, 181-184
Archbishopric of York, 45, 187,

189

Arch-chanter, John, 8, 118
Aries, Council of, 84
Arno of Salzburg, 202
Art, Anglo-Saxon, 304-321
Athanasius, 67, 84
Athelstane, 165, 166
At the Wall, 62
Augustine, 27
Austerfield, Synod at, 184

Bamborough, 184

Baptism, 241, 280

Bassus, 45

Bede, his life, 4-9 ; death, 10-
15 ; writings, 15-19 ; title of
Venerable, 19 ; the Ecclesi
astical History, ch. vi ; Lives
of the Abbats, ch. vii ; Life of
St. Cuthbert, ch. viii ; Caed-
mon and Wilfrith, ch. ix ;
Epistle to Ecgbert, ch. x ;
Poetic Writings, ch. xi ; Scien
tific Works, ch. xii; Com
mentaries and Homilies, ch.
xiii ; Sermon, a, ch. xiv ; on
miracles, ch. xv ; on morals,
ch. xvi ; study and missions,
ch. xvii ; his care as historian,
106, 137 ; his Nature of
Things, 222 ; his cross, 180 ;
his silence, 118, 181 ; his
Psalter, 213 ; his Canticum
graduum, 213 ; his introduc
tion of dating from Annus
Domini, 219 ; in Paradise,
222 ; as homilist, 231-233 ;
as commentator, 233-240 ;

323

324

The Venerable Bede

on the Blessed Virgin, 240 ;
on Baptism, 241, 242 ; on the
Lord's Supper, 242-245 ; on
Unction, 247 ; on Purgatory,
248-250 ; figurative interpre-

k&tation, 250-254 ; charged with

W'1 heresy, 251

Benedict Biscop, ch. vii

Berechtfrith, 184

Bernicia, 25, 48

Bertha, 30

Besthun, 272

Bethwegen, 269

Betti, 63

Bewcastie Cross, 78, 175, 309

Bishoprics, number of, in Bede's
time, 192 ; in Henry VIII 's
time, 192 ; now, 193 ; sub
division of, 187, 191-193, 281

Bishops, unsatisfactory, 279 ;
covetous, 146, 192, 280

Blecca, 40

Boisil, 144-146

Boniface, of Crediton, 289, 301 ;
Pope, 34

Bosa, 154

Bretwalda, 29

Brihtwald, archbishop, 183

Britain, in Bede's time, 107-109

British Christians, ch. v ; inter
views with Augustine, 87 ;
remains of churches, 95 ;
usages adopted by English, 94

Cadvan, 32

Cadwalla, 32, 38, 42, 49

Caedmon, ch. ix ; his cross, 175

Caerleon, 108

Campodonum, 40

Canterbury, 115

Carlisle, 156

Cataman, 32

Catterick, 39, 43

Ceadda (Chad), 71, 77, 93, 277,

300

Cedd, 63, 93
Celibacy, 237, 252
Ceolfrith, 55, 122, 128-134
Ceolwulf, 97, 185
Chanting, 5, 6, 8, 45, 46
Charlemagne, 169, 188

Charles Martel, 135

Chaucer, 199-202

Chelsea, Synod of, 220

Chilperic, 134

Church Music, 5, 6, 45, 46

Churchyards, 308-310

Claudia, 82

Clement of Rome, 82

Coenred of Mercia, his evil
servant, 249

Coifi, 35

Coldingham, 90, 286

Colman, 70-77

Columba, 55-57

Commentaries of Bede, ch. xiii

Coquet isle, 155

Creed, in English, 279

Crosses, 41, 44, 49, 78, 79

Cuckoo, 104, 175, 197-203

Cudda, 159

Cunibert, 99

Cuthbert, St., ch. viii ; his
miracles, 137-149 ; his sever
ity, 150, 151, 162 ; his chair
manship, 150 ; his election as
bishop, 154, 155 ; his Gospel,
163 ; his death, 159-162 ;
translation to Durham, 167,
270; his relics, 163, 164;
robes, 165-169 ; coffin, 270,
271

Cwichelm, 31

Cyneburga, 78

Cyneswitha, 78

Dacre, 269

Dalriads, in

Daniel, bishop, 99

Danish devastations, 136, 289

Death of Bede, its date, 10-15

Death song of Bede, 13

Deira, 25, 47

Derwent river, 31

Derwentwater, 156

Dewsbury, 41

Dioceses, too large, 191

Dionysius, on Times, 219

Diuma, 63

Dockum, 301

Dodo, 203

Dragonesque ornament, 312, 317

Index

325

Dream of the Holy Rood, 176-

180
Drythelm, vision by, 120, 248

Eadbert, bishop, 65 ; king, 186

Eadfrith, bishop, 303

Eanbald, 188

Eanfleda, 33, 45, 69

Earconwald, 277

Easingwold, 41

Easter controversy, 65-76

Easterwine, 122, 127

Eata, 51, 77, 144, 154

Ecgbert, Bede's letter to, ch. x
and xvi ; his pontifical, 185 ;
Alcuin's description of him, 186

Ecgfrith, 79, 89, 115, 124, 154, 181

Eddi, Stephen, 44, 76, 77, 100,
181

Edwin, 28-41

Egbert, his missions from Ire
land, 299

Elephants, 169

Elfleda, 62, 64, 155, 157, 183,
184 ; of Wessex, 166

Elmete, 40

English boys purchased, 27

Enigmas, 210—212

Ethelbald, a wicked king, 289

Ethelburga, 30, 45

Ethelred of Mercia, 183

Ethelwald, a hermit, 272

Eucharist, the Holy, 242

Ethelwold, his cross, 314

Ethelwulf, his ring, 305

Fame islands, the. See Ethel
wald, Lindisfarne, St. Cuth-
bert's Life

Fasting, hours of, 142, 143

Festal Epistles, 67

Figurative interpretations, 250-

254

Finan, 65
Fingers, indication of numerals

by, 218
Friesland, 301
Frithestan, bishop, 166
Fruidbert, 187
Fruidwald, 187

Gae (yea), 273

Gallio, 82

Genealogies, 47, 48

Gildas, 105

Glastonbury, 83

Gren river, 39

Goodmanham, 37

Gospel-book, 117, 163, 170, 318

Greek letters, 165

Gregory, Pope, 25-27

Guthfrid, 272

Hadrian, abbat, 99, 114; em
peror, 103, 104

Hadwald, 157

Hagulstad (Hexham), 272

Hartlepool, 64

Hawkswell, 43

Hefenfeld, 49

Hengest and Horsa, 103

Herebald, 275, 280

Herefrid, 159, 228

Heresy, Bede charged with, 251

Hewald, 301

Hexham, 50, 154, 187

Hilda, 64

Hildemer, 149, 157

History, uses of, 97

Homilies, chs. xiii, xiv

Honorius, archbishop, consecra
tion of, 40, 190 ; Pope, 190

Horseflesh, 293

Ignorance of clerics, 208, 209

Dam, 310

Incarnation, the, 232

Inderawuda (Beverley), 272

Ingwald, 142

Inisbonfinde, 76

Interlacements, 312

lona, 50, 51, 76

Ireland, 109 ; learning in, 303 ;

missions from, 299
Isicius, 107
Isidore, 221-226
Italian bishops, flight of, 45, 89

James the deacon, 43

Jarrow, Abbats of, ch. vii ;

dedication of, 122, 123 ; de-;

struction of, 136, 289

The Venerable Bede

Jaruman, 93

John, St., 72

John, of Beverley and Hexham,
8, 268, 272-276 ; the arch-
chanter, 8, 118

Joseph of Arimathea, 83

Justus, 31, 89, 189

Kells, 312, 321
Kings, evil, 288-291
Kinnell, 101
Kirkdale Church, 123 •

Laity, suitable teaching for, 195
Languages, five in Britain, 109
Lastingham, 54, 99, 123
Laurentius, 89

Learning, Anglo-Saxon, ch. xvii
Leechdoms, Anglo-Saxon, 273-

276

Leo III, Pope, 188
Library of Wearmouth, 125 ;

of York, 298
Lincoln, 40, 44
Lindisfaras (Lindsey), 41 n.
Lindisfarne, 41 «., 51, 65, 76, 77,

79, 138, MS, 150, 154, 160,
187, 289 ; Gospels, 303

Loidis (Leeds), 40, 64

London, 108

Lord's Prayer, in English, 279

Luel (Lugubalia), 296

Lulla, 33

Mageo, 77

Martin's, St., 95

Maserfield, 53

Mellitus, 88

Melrose, 51, 77, 143

Mertia, 47, 94

Miracles, chs. viii and xv

Missions of Anglo-Saxons, 299-

3«>3
Monasteries, many founded, 64,

193 ; to become bishops' sees,

193 ; disorderly, 194, 195,

282-286

Monk, impenitent, 285
Morals, ch. xvi.

Nidd, Synod, 183
Niduari (Nithsdale), 146
Northumbria, conversion of,
ch. ii ; second conversion,
ch. iii ; progress to Bede's
time, ch. iv.
Nothelm, 99

Numerals, indication of, 218
Nuns, careless lives of, 287

Orosius, 98, 191
Qsred, an evil king, 288
Oswald, ch. iii
Oswin, 57-59
Oswulf, 1 86
Oswy, ch. iv

Pagan practices, 291-293
Pallium, 45, 187, 188, 189, 190
Pancras, St., 94
Papal letters, dubious, 184 ;

privileges, confirmation of , 121
Parochial system, 192
Pastoral Care, 191
Paul, St., equality with St.

Peter, 72, 113, 203-210, 300
Paulinus, 31-45, 189, 190
Peada, 62
Pelagianism, 105
Penda, 38, 42, 53, 63
Pepin, 135
Peter and Paul, Sts., 72, 113,

203-210, 300
Peter, St., Revelation of, 119;

church of, 130
Picts, 52, 90, 101, 147 ; origin,

109; law of descent, no;

their Art, 316, 317
Picts and Scots, 88, 101
Pictures, 119, 307
Pilgrimages, 289
Plegwin, Bede's letter to, 251
Plummer, Dr., 222
Poole, Dr. R. L., 219
Porpoises, 148
Presages, 227—230
Priests, ignorant, 208, 209
Psalter, Bede's, 212-214
Puch, Earl, 273

Index

327

Pudens, 82
Purgatory, 248-250

Quartodecimans, 66

Rainbow, the, 224, 225

Ravenna, 311

Real Presence, the, 243

Redwald, 34

Revelation of St. Peter t 119

Rheged, 40

Riculf of Mainz, 212

Riddles, 212

Ripon, 70, 1 1 6, 144, 305

Robes, Silk, 124, 165-169, 306 '

Rogation Fasts, 142

Roman Walls, 101-104

Romans in Britain, 84, 100-104

Romamis, 41, 71

Ronan, 69

Ruin of Britain, 105

Run or Rum, 41

Runes, 178, 180

Ruthwell Cross, 79, 178, 309

Sandbach Crosses, 309

Scotic bishops, 53, 94

Scots, 52

Sculptured Stones, 307

Scythia, 109

Sea, why salt, 223, 224

Seneca, 82

Sermon by Bede, ch. xiv

Severus, 101-104

Sigfrid, 124

Simon Magus, 75

Slaves, 25, 26

Stars, have they souls ?, 227

Stonyhurst, 164

Succession to abbacies, 125

Suidbert, 269

Sundials, 123

Swale river, 39

Synods, Austerfield, 184; Chel
sea, 220 ; Nidd, 183 ; Twy-
ford, 154

Taliessin, 40

Tertullian, 84

Theodore, archbishop, 80, 99,

114, 154, 184, 192
Theodoret, 82
Thridred, 270
Thunderings, 227-230
Times, the reckoning of, 218
Tonsure, 75

Transubstantiation, 243
Tree of Life, 311
Trumwine, 90, 154
Tuda, 77
Tunbert, 154

Twyford on Alne, Synod, 154
Tynemouth, 140

Unction, 277
Urbgin or Urien, 41

Verca, 159

Viaticum refused, 285
Vice, 284, 287
Vinwed, 64
Virgin Mary, 122, 130
Vitalian, Pope, 114

Walstod, 161

Wardle, Sir T., 167

Wearmouth, Abbats of, ch. vii ;
foundation of, 115 ; reputa
tion of, 135 ; destruction of,
136, 289 ; library of, 125

Whalley, 41

Whithern, 147, 167

Wilfrith, 71-75, 77, 93. Il6> Il8»
145, 154 ; his expulsions and
appeals, 181-184

Willibrord, 301

Winwick, 9

Wulfhere, 10

York, Archbishopric, 187, 189 ;

Library, 298 ; Minster, 38,

44 ; School, 295-299
Yorkshire boys, 25

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THE DISMEMBERMENT OF OSWALD

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(Page 79)

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PLA TE VII

ST. CUTHI5KRTS PECTORAL CROSS

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ROl'.K PREPARED FOR THE TRANSLATION OF ST. CUTHBERT'S IIODY

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THE RUTHWELL RUNES
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CROSS-SHAFT OF
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(Page 314)

VINE SCROLL,
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PLATE XVII

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THE BEWCASTLE CROSS. SOUTH SIDE, WITH EAST
SIDE IN PROFILE

(Page 3 1 3)

PLATE XIX

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LEAF AT THE BEGINNING OF ST. LUKE, LIND1SFARNE GOSPELS.
HALF-SIZE LINEAR

(Page 3 1 8)

PLATE XX

ORNAMENTAL LEAF, L1NDISFARNE GOSPELS. HALF-SIZE LINEAR

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BINDING SECT. MAR 1 8 1983

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